Brooke Belisle. University of California Press, 2023.
How does depth inform the way we see and experience the world, and can it be truly recreated in two-dimensional form? Is depth just an abstract measurement or is it something more? In her book, Depth Effects: Dimensionality from Camera to Computation, Brooke Belisle argues that “depth is not merely a visual effect belonging to perspective, nor is it an objective property belonging to things; it is an ontological structure.” (Belisle 10) It is a structure of being that represents the existence of space and the difference between objects in the world. Through an analysis of contemporary computational imaging, in close comparison to nineteenth-century photographic processes, Belisle explores the way artificially generated depth effects change the way we see and experience the world. The book presents a beautiful line between dimensionality, technology, and theoretical visual frameworks that explore a plethora of visual materials from smartphone portrait photography to artistic reimagining of satellite images. It is grounded in renewed discussions of how technology, often within colonial structures, (re)shapes photography and visual culture.
Throughout its main chapters, the book focuses on three spatial techniques of contemporary computational imaging: object recognition, depth mapping, and photogrammetry in mobile mapping apps. These contemporary techniques are placed in conversation with early forms of photographic processes such as stereography, portraiture, and land surveys. It is not, however, a historical retelling of photography, and I would argue that it may have helped slightly that I already had a basic understanding of some of those nineteenth-century processes. Belisle also makes clear that the comparison is not meant to elicit a straight line between old and new, but to point out the way each period has evoked a new way of seeing depth through photography. For example, the introduction of mass marketed portraiture in the nineteenth-century radically changed the way Victorian people saw themselves. This is similar to the way smartphone portrait mode is once again changing the way we experience seeing ourselves. We become the seer and the seen in the same moment. Of course, 1800’s portraiture techniques were also used for the often racist anthropological study of colonized peoples. Those colonial structures are also present in current imaging techniques, especially facial recognition technology. Belisle goes on to further apply these comparisons to space itself within mapping and early survey technology, to take a wider look at the visual world. I was pleasantly surprised to see that she does not strictly tie her argument to traditional forms of photography but also includes multimedia artists like Lorna Simpson and Andreas Gursky to expand the idea of visual culture as it relates to computational imaging.
Between the three main chapters are what she refers to as “entrelacs” or short interludes that deal specifically with French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s theories of depth and visual experience. It is in these entrelacs that Belisle confronts theories of depth as an ontological structure and dives deeper into what it means to see and experience dimensionality. This separation between theory and real-world application was at first off-putting for me, as a reader. I wanted to know how these things connected further and I was sometimes disappointed not to see this theory specifically interwoven with the main chapters. However, as I went through the book, I came to enjoy the short breaks between chapters and the space the separation allowed for me to create my own connections between Belisle’s main arguments and Merleau-Ponty’s theoretical frameworks. The book very much begs the reader to interact, to join the conversation, and to think through connections without being explicitly led to them.
Depth Effects is not for the casual reader. Instead, it is expertly aimed to communicate with current scholars of visual culture and resources. Its theoretical framing, although inspired, is not for the faint of heart, and admittedly even I struggled to grasp some concepts quickly. I approached the book with a specific interest in the colonial structures often tied to photography. While it does confront colonialism in both the nineteenth-century processes and contemporary imaging–specifically through anthropological studies of colonized people and spaces–it felt more like an afterthought to the main arguments. This did not necessarily take away from the accomplishments of the book, though I do not think that it should be a main selling point, either. It does not confront archives specifically, but I could see its use for those who work closely with photograph collections and want a deeper understanding of dimension, depth, and the theoretical frameworks that drive some of the artistic processes. This scholarship illuminates a deeper understanding of dimensional aesthetics, computational imaging, and how we see and experience the world through photographic representation. It is, in my opinion, a triumph in the field of visual culture studies.
Ashley Tooke, Archives and Document Control Assistant, Massachusetts Institute of Technology