Woody Packard

Words + Pictures

Binocular Vision

This is a portrait of my neighbor Stephen Fielding, taken with two video cameras mounted side by side. The footage is played back in two channels, projected together on a corner wall so that the two halves are synchronized. Despite the fact that the cameras were positioned carefully, the complexity of binocular vision soon shows its telltale signs. Parallax changes that perfect alignment as camera distance changes, causing the match to include an area of overlap. Problems with the synchronization of left and right channels caused even more issues and becomes apparent even when off by a few frames. We take for granted the fact that human eyes blink at a regular rate and that they blink simultaneously. Seeing these eyes blink independently is only the first of several things that become unsettling.