Immersive Experiences
The 18th and 19th Century Japanese Occulus
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Mark Donoghue
This paper explores the notion of an image and its relation to lived perception by examining Japanese 18th and 19th century perspective prints intended to be used in a peepboxes and zograscopes. This study also refers to current psychological research to explain the effect of these prints. In Japan in the mid 18th century a ban on foreign books and images was relaxed allowing the importation of Western prints and painting treatises. Artists were able to utilize this material to create linear perspective images. Accompanying a growth in Western studies in general, Western lenticular devices like telescopes and microscopes were being imported. These prints and optical devices promoted a change in the regime of visuality. These new compositional techniques and viewing devices came together in the development of uki-e (lit. floating picture) prints that utilized linear perspective as their primary appeal and were often used in conjunction with peepboxes or zograscope viewing glasses. In comparison to the traditional Asian painting formats of scrolls or screens where space is composed so the eye can drift over the surface, liner perspective prints assumed a single viewpoint that was restricted further through these viewing devices. How such prints produce their effect can be understood by appealing to theories of perception that conceive of the visual cognition as consisting of two interconnected systems. In short, the perception of pictures is conditioned by these two systems, and because such devices inhibit surface cues, it decouples these systems and enhances the effect of depth.
Narrative Progression and Framework of Video Archives in Rural Northeast China
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Cicely Chen, Yang Geng
Northeast China is a region of China whose territory has undergone many changes. It was not until the surrender of Japan in World War II that its frontier finally stabilized. In 1930, in the historical process of transition from the traditional agricultural economy to a modern industrial economy, China, as a developing country, appeared as the "urban-rural dual structure." Around 2000, China was in the throes of transition. Under the guideline of vigorously developing the economy, China's urbanization process is accelerating, and the population problem in northeast China is severe. We collected and sorted out video materials related to documentaries, films, and television programs related to the theme of "northeast countryside" from 1840 to the present. On this basis, we also set up a digital archive for the video of northeast villages. The creators of the rural video archives in northeast China return the marginal rural culture to human group life, and present and discuss the conflicts and reconciliation among different orientations of the rural video archives in northeast China based on emotional maintenance. We try to support the cultural confidence of northeast China in these ways.
