ABSTRACT

Between the invention of photography and the advent of film there arose a singular visual medium: tissue paper stereoviews of the 1860s that permitted the viewer to change a scene from greyscale and unilluminated to colour and illuminated when viewed through a stereoscope. These dual images, photographed using a camera with two lenses, were printed, hand-coloured, and perforated on layers of tissue paper and then placed side-by-side in cardboard mounts. The shifts along the greyscale/color unilluminated/illuminated continua merely depended upon the angle of light striking the stereoview, and the viewer could vary the pace and direction of the transformation. Objects did not move, but intensely three-dimensional scenes of receding planes of depth changed at will, sometimes depicting a shift from day to night, but often producing ambiguous scenes that challenged such a binary division of time. The narrative and temporal fluidities that tissue paper made possible differentiated these stereoviews from their counterparts produced on glass or card stock. The seamless, silent, flicker-free transformation of scenes offered viewers a deeply immersive, three-dimensional visual experience that was distinctly different from the plethora of mechanical animated stereoscopes that arose at the same time. Likewise, it was different from dioramas because unlike those communal visual experiences, the tissue paper stereoview experience was entirely in control of the user. Because the shifts back and forth between greyscale and colour comprise the most salient feature of the medium, experience glancing toward the colouring of early film stock that can help establish a frame of reference in which to assess tissue paper stereoviews. It is for this reason that an analysis of applied colour of early film is pulled into the discussion.

摘要

在摄影的发明和电影的出现之间，出现了一种独特的视觉媒介：1860 年代的薄纸立体视图，当通过立体镜观看时，它允许观看者将场景从灰度和未照明变为彩色和照明。这些双重图像是使用带有两个镜头的相机拍摄的，经过打印、手工上色并在薄纸层上打孔，然后并排放置在纸板支架中。沿灰度/彩色未照明/照明连续体的变化仅取决于光照射立体视图的角度，并且观察者可以改变变换的速度和方向。物体没有移动，但深度后退平面的强烈三维场景随意变化，有时描绘从白天到黑夜的转变，但通常会产生模棱两可的场景，挑战这种二元的时间划分。薄纸使叙事和时间流动性成为可能，使这些立体视图与在玻璃或卡片纸上产生的对应物区分开来。无缝、无声、无闪烁的场景转换为观众提供了一种身临其境的立体视觉体验，这与同时出现的大量机械动画立体镜截然不同。同样，它与立体模型不同，因为与那些公共视觉体验不同，纸巾立体视图体验完全由用户控制。因为灰度和颜色之间的来回转换构成了媒体最显着的特征，体验一下早期胶片的着色，这可以帮助建立一个参考框架来评估薄纸立体视图。正是出于这个原因，对早期电影应用颜色的分析被纳入讨论。