Artspeak

Andreyev's new work combines the production of a gallery-sized Wheatstone Stereoscope and images of contemporary simulation in entertainment arcades with research into nineteenth century mechanisms used to create three dimensional illusions. Virtual technologies developed for video arcades can be seen as contemporary equivalents of historical mechanisms such as the stereoscope. She is interested in technology and vision, and contemporary technology in relation to origins of technology. Contemporary imagery quite often conceals its construction. However, by conflating earlier procedures with contemporary content which shows the illusionary image, the viewer can become aware of the actual construction of vision. Before photography was invented in the nineteenth century, Sir Charles Wheatstone invented the first stereoscope (in 1832) which created a three dimensional illusion from a stereoscopic pair of drawings. Each image from a stereoscopic pair is mounted vertically facing each other, and each image is reflected in one side of a ninety degree mirror mounted in the centre. By placing one's eyes close up to the mirrors, each eye looking in one side of the ninety degree mirror, one can see a three dimensional illusion as the reflection of the images overlap in one's field of vision. The installation consists of one pair of stereoscopic photographs, mounted directly across from each other on the walls of a gallery space. Life size photographs have been created on site at Playdium arcade in Vancouver, one of the largest arcades in North America. The images show specific games with participants using them.. The viewing device is made of a small cube of mirror mounted in the middle of the gallery space, with the viewing points positioned at the corners of the mirrored cube. Because of the nature of the lighting, and the long explosures used to photograph the scene, the people using the games appear somewhat 'ghost-like', blurred into the image on the game's monitor, and in contrast, the technology appears 'solid'. Other figures, stationary and well lit, appear more three-dimensional and tangible than the users of the games. The contrasting appearance of the people in the images parallels the viewers in the gallery and the ghost like three dimensional images produced by the viewing apparatus.

Julie Andreyev is a graduate of ECIAD in Fine Arts and the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies program at SFU. She has exhibited her work in Canada and Australia since 1990. She currently teaches at SFU'c School for Contemporary Arts.