ABSTRACT
In 1964, Robert Smithson first conceived of his sculpture Enantiomorphic Chambers by drawing in pink marker over an illustration of a stereoscope in the book Introduction to Physicological Optics by James P.C. Southall. In a stereoscope, a pair of images is viewed through a system of openings, mirrors, or lenses. The device ensures that each eye only sees one of the pictures. The two flat images are fused into a single three-dimensional scene by the brain. If the two pictures are different the mind cannot fuse them into a single image; instead the perception of each picture will alternate in a phenomenon called retinal rivalry. Smithson used the form of the stereoscope, but replaced the pair of images with mirrors. His goal was to make the viewer aware of her sight by inducing retinal rivalry. This chapte discusses the allusions to stereoscopes and the successes and failures of stereo vision in Smithson’s Enantiomorphic Chambers by referencing neuroscientific studies of retinal rivalry by Randolph Blake and Mark Williams alongside the artist's own writings on sculpture.
