Surface Explorations: 3D Moving Images as Cartographies of Time

Abstract

Moving images of travel and exploration have a long history. In this essay I will examine how the trope of navigation in 3D moving images can work towards an intimate and haptic encounter with other times and other places – elsewhen and elsewhere. The particular navigational construction of space in time afforded by 3D moving images can be considered a cartography of time. This is a haptic cartography of exploration of the surfaces on which this encounter takes place. Taking Werner Herzog’s film Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010) as a theoretical object, the main question addressed is how the creative exploration of new technologies of visualization – here: from rock painting, principles of animation, to 3D moving images – entails an epistemological inquiry into, and statements about, the power of images, technologies of vision, and the media cartographies they make. These questions turn new technologies into relevant sources for cultural, historical and philosophical reflection.