The Cinematheque

“To doubt that tomorrow belongs to stereocinema is just as naïve as it is to doubt the very coming of tomorrow!”

Sergei Eisenstein

Unlike other major technical enhancements to arrive in the last hundred years—sound, colour emulsion, widescreen aspect ratios, and surround mixing—and despite being greeted with substantial public enthusiasm at the onset of its notable waves in the mid-1950s, early 1970s, and late 2000s, 3D has, for myriad reasons, never managed to become a production or exhibition standard. This intermittency has no doubt affected the format’s ability to mature, suspending it in a perpetual ​“demonstration” phase that privileges the wonder of its technological accomplishment, and taking no shame in drawing audiences’ attention to its full formal potential.

3D’s ​“look at me!” attitude never goes away. Indeed, stereoscopy could be thought of as cinema’s Peter Pan format—the attention-seeking child that can’t grow up, instead opting to chase its own shadow. Thus, we celebrate 3D’s primal and flamboyant energy, showcasing films made by artists and filmmakers who take playful and innovative approaches to the third dimension.

The link between 3D spectacle and early cinema—an era famously described using the term ​“cinema of attractions” by historian Tom Gunning—runs deep. That period’s sensibility, marked by the image’s drive toward visibility and a direct address to the spectator, is abundant in this program, where attractions abound in both narrative and experimental contexts. In ​“Planes, Frames, and Autostereoscopy,” we present a collection of shorts made by several trailblazing film and video artists to showcase a spectrum of unorthodox stereoscopic effects, for which we’ll provide five different kinds of 3D glasses.

In a longer form, Ulysses in the Subway (2017) takes us on a stunning journey through the literal underground, as members of the multidisciplinary digital arts collective OpenEndedGroup collaborate with the godfather of experimental 3D, Ken Jacobs, and his partner Flo, algorithmically generating all of the film’s images from a field recording captured in New York’s subway system. As if it still needs to be said, these films can make you feel in ways you never imagined, and that effect is inextricable from their 3D presentation.

Curated by Blake Williams