Stereoscopic Vision /
Beamsplitter Camera Rig

In examining the question „what it means to see?“ we think vision as a collective seeing effort, moving away from the binocular setup to a diffracted mode of seeing, seeing with skin-eyes, distributed, restless, in-between. To do this, we look at the principles of stereoscopic vision and the slight but relative discrepancies in the communication of information, or what is called the disparation, the slight difference between the two images delivered to the retina and consequently to the brain. The stereoscopic principle creates depth, “it merely requires the image formed on the retina of the left eye to be different from the image formed on the retina of the right eye … the two images must not be superposable, but their difference must be slight”. The range in the difference between the two images is limited, even though information increases the further apart. At a certain point each image abruptly becomes independent and thus the corresponding depth is lost.

Stereoscopic vision relies on the spatial distance of, at least, two images. It is the space between these images that is turned into the subject matter here. Thus, it is not only a take on scale in the sense of transitioning from macro to micro, but also on the positioning of point of views and their relationship in constructing an image, and its realities of depths. Philosopher Gilbert Simondon discusses the slight but relative discrepancies in the communication of information, as in the example of the sizing of grains of sand and the film material’s grain capturing that sand, or the background noise inherent in an apparatus transmitting a signal. And, interestingly for this project, links to the phenomenon behind binocular vision producing three-dimensional images: disparation, or the slight difference between the two images delivered to the retina. The stereoscopic principle creates depth, “it merely requires the image formed on the retina of the left eye to be different from the image formed on the retina of the right eye … the two images must not be superposable, but their difference must be slight”. The range in the difference between the two images is limited, even though information increases the further apart. At a certain point each image abruptly becomes independent and thus the corresponding depth is lost. We would like to think a collective seeing effort, moving away from the binocular setup to a diffracted mode of seeing, seeing with skin-eyes, distributed, restless, in-between. If one returns once more to the anatomy and functionality of the human eye and the production and illusion of seeing, it is interesting to note that the fovea, crucial for reading and other activities that require concentration and focus, is a tiny area covering less than 1% of the retina, but over 50% of the visual cortex in the brain. Our impression of seeing everything before us with equal sharpness is solely accomplished through our eyes moving back and forth, scanning the scene about three times per second, followed by compensation work of the brain. So our eyes are restless, moving to complete the picture so to say. To focus on an object requires the letting go of the background information around it. In order to see means a latency in the refreshment of the remaining information. Therefore what we see is highly fictional, the truth of the eye is a speculative collaborative effort between the sensory organ of the eye, the visual cortex of the brain and the nervous system. Paradoxically, the anatomy of the human eye is built so that one sees nothing right at the point where vision happens. At this blind spot of the eye no color and light information can be processed: in a small depression at the back of the eye sits the optic disc, the field in the retina where the optic nerve passes through. This entrance to the eyeball is without rods or cones, unable to detect light on the disc, thus creating a blind spot in the eye. And again, it is the brain and the correspondence between the two eyes compensating for the missing information and completing the picture. So if we understand the eye itself as restless, without a fixed position when looking at an object but in motion, performing constant micro movements scanning what it sees. Consequently, monocular seeing is not a linear projection, but a synthesis drawn from a multitude of dispersed individual projections each cast from another focal point. This could become our potential entrance point into plant seeing, telling plant timings. Becoming light-sensitive beings that dwell in a shared, perceptive space. A speculative cohabitation with humans, plants and all species becoming receptive material for each other.