Stereoscope by Jonathan Bruce Williams, 2025, programmable LED lightbox
Stereoscope by Jonathan Bruce Williams, 2025, programmable LED lightbox
▶ Play video

"Stereoscope" is a still life constructed from original 3D models, depicting a Victorian-era end table adorned with objects suggesting illusion, reflection, and inner vision. In place of a stereo card, the device presents two candles, recalling a meditative technique of sustained focus on a flame. Seen through the stereoscope, the duplicated flames collapse the boundaries between entertainment, ritual, and spiritual exercise. As Jonathan Crary describes in "Techniques of the Observer", the 19th century fundamentally shifted vision through apparatus. The lightboxes themselves are contemporary successors to these technologies.

From Let's All Abandon Reality Together, Kai Matsumiya, New York, 2025.
© 2025 Jonathan Bruce Williams. All rights reserved. Copyright and permissions.

Stereoscope

97.7 × 49.8 × 10.5 cm

2025