THE END OF THE DAYDREAM155step that substantially influenced the production of affirmation in photo-
graphic representation during the nineteenth century. With their roots
firmly grounded in the Victorian technical visuality enacted by the stereo-
scope and troubling of optical realism, Horn’s diptychs perform a specula-
tive maneuver that inscribes the looping trappedness of anthropogenic
representational politics.
The stereoscope utilized two superimposable images taken at slightly
different angles that, when placed side by side, as in Horn’s work, and gazed
at through a set of lenses, merged to create the illusion of one three-di-
mensional object (fig. 4.6). This reversal of the photographic process fas-
cinated audiences because it provided a miniaturized mimetic model of
FIGURE 4.6 A Holmes stereoscope from the nineteenth century. Photograph in pub-
lic domain.