Revisiting the Stereoscopic Archive as Proustian Memory Recalling Device

Stereoscopic tours were pre-cinematographic devices that from immersion and photography designed the possibility of traveling from optical simulations. Preceding the current virtual tours, these tours tried to categorize the world from a markedly colonial perspective, simplifying and generalizing the visit to other countries. The article presents a reflection on the look and act of observing taking as an object of analysis a stereoscopic tour made by the American company Underwood & Underwood in Barranquilla at the beginning of the 20th century.First, the work seeks to display the specificities of the eye experience in these stereoscopic spaces and the way in which the sensation of depth is produced from the eye’s movement, in order to point out the contribution of this device to visual experiences. Second, the paper narrates the experience of exploring the photographed spaces and interacting with the current inhabitants to whom the archive images are presented. When presenting the device to the people from the Barranquilla area, memories are promoted about the urban development of the city and concern about its heritage. In addition, aspirations of economic development from tourism are detected, making visible the correspondence of the product with contemporary practices of visual memory based on the exploitation of tourism. Throughout the article, the concept of immersion linked to technique and tourism is reviewed, in search of concepts that respond to mercantile and technocratic currents of the revival of stereoscopy in virtual and augmented reality.