The making of contemporary conceptual fine art begins with an artist’s careful selection of the subject and ends with the method the artist uses to present the subject in a truly original way. While these criteria are the essence of what separates casual amateur artists from those highly innovative, trained, creative, and skilled in the art, it by no means guarantees their popularity or acceptance of their work within the art world. In the world of contemporary modern art, specifically the art of stereo photography, selecting subjects and composing them in an original way is especially difficult. The following article explores the journey of one such artist who is reinventing the stereo art form in order to fulfill contemporary conceptual fine art criteria. 

Photography: So much has been done, it is difficult to produce unique original work 

Similar to modern day photography, stereo photography hasn’t changed much over the years. Stereo imagery has been observed using some variation of the initial Holmes’ style pedestal stereoscope such as the one to the left for years with some relatively recent digital format exceptions that require a computer to display.  

The Holmes’ style viewer sported a clip for a card which held the two images, a visor that trained the viewer’s eyes on the stereo images by manipulating the distance between the images and the lenses, as well as a stand (or pedestal) or a handle that allowed the viewer to optimally view the image. Some Holmes’ style viewers attempted to emulate the look and feel of fine furniture or sleek lines that might prompt their owners to proudly display them while others were more compact to the point where the viewer could store the apparatus in their pocket for portability. The benefit of the Holmes’ style viewer was that it maintained the correct distance between image and the lenses; it could be viewed anywhere, it required only light (no wires, electronics, or batteries necessary), while allowing viewers to easily change the stereo photographs by simply replacing the card being viewed. However the idea of this apparatus never remotely resembled something people wanted to proudly display - let alone hang on the wall. Similarly the idea of a portable stereo viewing device is a nice tool for stereo photographers but since it required viewers to have one handy as well as constantly adjust the correct viewing distance, such an apparatus also had its limitations.  

While there is always the art (the stereo images) which speaks for itself in terms of the creativity of the photographer and the reaction the viewer has to the art, the delivery of stereo art or more specifically the viewing mechanism has always been either obtrusive, inconvenient, or unwielding in its technical or display requirements. 

Reinventing the Delivery of Stereo Imagery 

Rebecca Hackemann (www.rebecca-h.net) is an emerging contemporary artist/photographer but unlike many other black and white photographers, she has brought about a modern day reinvention of older stereo photographic presentation and content. Rebecca’s reinvention of stereo photography begins with the evolution of her own stereo image delivery device that she calls an optical sculpture.

Rebecca’s first attempt at creating an optical sculpture was this cardboard box shown to the right which was complete with viewing lenses, an internal battery operated light source that was activated by a switch on the side, and a compartment that was filled with slides of stereo images that when placed into the slot just between the lenses produced a perfect stereo image for the viewer. The cardboard box was covered with tea-stained Japanese paper and included many different instructions all around the box to show the viewer how to operate the viewing mechanism. While this initial attempt at creating an esthetically pleasing stereo viewer with many of the same advantages of the initial Holmes’ style viewer was a success, the requirement of batteries (or anything other than light) was unsatisfactory. Further refinement was deemed necessary to produce a desired sculptural quality. 

Rebecca’s next attempt at refining her optical sculpture was to build on her lessons learned to create a viewing device that did not require batteries. This creation is shown to the left and was made of wood joined by nails and glue. Holes were drilled in the wood to house the viewing lenses and two stereo images affixed to the inside the enclosure opposite of the lenses at the proper distance and viewing angle for the viewer. On top the enclosure (near the images) was velum paper which permitted diffused natural light to enter the optical sculpture allowing the stereo image to be viewed without the need for batteries.

Although this approach was popular, the mixture of wood and velum paper construction wasn’t durable, and it lacked the sculptural qualities needed by viewers to proudly display such wall hung art. Cleaner lines were needed in the optical sculpture.

Rebecca next attempted moving to a molded transparent box to illuminate her artwork within a more smooth, durable, and pleasing enclosure. She created a plastic mold that allowed a semi clear rubber to be poured into it yielding the open box shown to the right. Once complete, holes were drilled into the mold for lenses which were inserted as well as properly aligned stereo images. The top was covered with cream colored canvas that was covered with an acrylic clear gel that made it look like skin or parchment. While this transparent box was much more aesthetically pleasing, the time required to construct the box and prepare it for display of the stereo images was overwhelming.  

Through the years, Rebecca has fine tuned her own delivery device to an art. The latest optical sculpture approaches fine art in its own right and features a poplar wood enclosure that is resistant to expansion and contraction with age. The wooden enclosure has holes drilled into it in preparation for lenses added later and is nailed and glued together and primed with all-natural rabbit skin glue and then covered in homemade gesso (the white undercoating of oil paintings). The gesso is from a 16th century recipe that is used for its archival qualities (meaning that it won’t decay over the years) and it’s thick application. Gesso consists of rabbit skin glue and marble dust that can be easily sanded to a very smooth finish. Once sanded, the optical sculpture is coated with conservators’ mirco-crystalline wax to produce a sheen that makes it look like marble. 

Atop this optical sculpture is a small rectangular hole that allows images and a 1/16 inch thick visual divide to be affixed down the center of the enclosure. The images are 3 x 3 inches and sit 8 inches away from the lenses which are affixed to the outside of the optical sculpture. The lenses are optical grade glass bi-convex lenses with a 4x magnification, a focal length of 300 mm, and a diameter of 38 mm. The rough dimensions of the optical sculpture are 8 inches wide, 5 inches high and 9 inches deep. The rectangular hole is then covered with light diffusing Plexiglas and some meaningful aspect of the image housed inside the box is hand written on the outside of the optical sculpture with archival quality ink. 

Rebecca has gone to great lengths so that her optical sculptures will stand the test of time and don’t require any electricity, batteries, or a computer. Similar to a painting on the wall that only requires natural light, so long as there is light of any kind (incident light), one can forever enjoy the personal experience of viewing her art through these hand crafted and a esthetically pleasing optical sculptures. 

The art inside presents a personal visual experience between the medium and the viewer 

Rebecca spends a lot of time thinking about each shot and her art form spans many humorous contemporary political and societal issues as well as language and how its meaning is constructed. Rebecca’s stereo art represents a world that reflects images that have been carefully planned out and matched with representative text during a lengthy idea/creativity stage. Sets or subjects are then constructed or made up within a studio, photographed using a Sputnik 120 stereo twin-lens reflex 2 camera or dual Rolleicord 120 twin-lens reflex cameras or two homemade pinhole cameras (made from converted Holga 120 cameras), and then (if necessary) any other desired effects are constructed in the dark room prior to final image printing (the most common effect is the addition of the text to the photograph). The resulting prints are stereoscopic black and white constructed photographs (silver gelatin prints) of a fictional world with text. 

Assembly and presentation  

Once these individual piece(s) have been assembled and mounted on a wall, they become part of the wall, thus allowing potential viewers to observe other viewers interacting with the visual sculpture without knowing what they are viewing or seeing. Similarly, when the viewer is looking in to the image within the box, they may realize that others could be observing them -  however their primary focus is their experience of viewing the image within the box.  

Experiencing Rebecca's art is about looking and seeing. The content of photography in general is about how we see the world. Just as two human eyes see in 3-D, so do the lenses on a stereo camera provide a 3-D illusion in photography. This theme carries through into Rebecca’s photographs and the things that one might not normally see (or perceive). Playing with associations between the collective image bank that people hold in their minds unconsciously and pushing these associations between the text and photograph is intentionally meant to challenge the mind to relate the photograph to the text through rhetoric and something personally meaningful to the viewer.  

There is a reason way Rebecca’s images are stereoscopes and not paintings. The actual medium of her work is unified with the meaning of the content of the photographs. That is what conceptual art is. There is a concept behind the meaning of the art form such that the form and the content are allied – meaning the medium itself is not a gimmick (it is not there just for fun). The stereoscope (optical sculpture) is about sight, draws attention to sight, as does the meaning of the combination of the photographs and the text.  

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