A by-product of early 19th century advances in physiological optics, the stereoscope capitalized on the discovery that with binocular vision, each eye sees something slightly different due to the angular disparity existing between them. The production of depth in sight was subsequently understood to be in some way related to the mind's ability to unite and reconcile two dissimilar images. Within this context, the stereoscope was developed to reproduce this optical experience mechanically.

Significantly, the device marks an intent not just to represent a given space, but to actually simulate its 'presence'. What is sought is not merely a 'likeness', but a lucid 'tangibility'. With the stereoscope, one is confronted not with a view of the world through an aperture or frame, but with the technical reconstitution of an already reproduced world fragmented into two non-identical models.

[ re: Jonathan Crary/Techniques of the Observer/Stereoscope ]

Through the incorporation of the observing subject into the mechanics of the device, the stereoscopic image is produced. The body is immobilized and integrated with the apparatus. The subject becomes a participant in the production of a verisimilitude through a process of unifying and reconciling the experience of difference. The disjunction between an experience and it's cause is reified, the 'real' conflated with the 'optical'. Absent is the notion of a 'point of view' in a Cartesian sense. There is, in the end, nothing out there.

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