Gezicht op Pest vanuit Boeda in Boedapest 1868

Charles Gaudin created this stereoscopic photograph of Pest from Buda in Budapest. Its double image allowed viewers with special equipment to experience a crude form of 3D, intensifying the sense of actually being in a particular place. This photograph was made and circulated during a period when tourist culture was taking off. Photography was thought to capture a scene as it really was, which made it an ideal souvenir and a way to impress others back home. But the institutions of art and science were also aligning to study human perception. Stereoscopy offered the tantalizing prospect of simulating reality itself. A great deal of historical research goes into understanding the status of an image like this in its own time. By understanding the contemporary debates around the technology and institutions of photography we can appreciate the cultural work that it did. We come to recognize it as so much more than a simple record of what a place looked like.