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TRAVEL IMAGERY:
PERCEPTIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF NIAGARA FALLS THROUGH MEDIA
by
ANGÉLICA YANETH PIEDRAHITA DELGADO
May 8th, 2013
A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of
the University at Buffalo, State University of New York in partial fulRillment of the requirements for the
degree of
Master of Fine Arts
Department of Media Studies
© 2013Angélica PiedrahitaAll Rights Reserved
ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I deeply thank my professors, Dr. Teri Rueb for encouraging me to begin with
openhearted inquiries about spatial human concerns and for her intuitive understanding of
my ideas. Dr. Miriam Paeslack for her steady interest in my artistic methods and her guidance
through my academic process. I appreciate Professor Marc Bohlen´s concise and sharp
feedback as well as his constant and accurate advices about the future of my career as an art
practitioner. I would like to thank the staff at the Niagara Falls Public Library for guiding me
to their amazing and rich archive on the local history, as well as, opening the library’s space to
share and discuss my Rindings. I appreciate Dr. Dave Pape´s references on stereoscopy and his
help during the process as well as Professor Erik Conrad for his genuine interest and
dedication to answering my questions. I deeply appreciate the help of Anna Scime, Elizabeth
Flyntz, Jordan Dalton and Brian Clark for their constant interest in the project, their help
reading and editing this paper, their company and valuable insights on the site and their
constant support. I also thank Alba Jaramillo, John Pieret and Carl Lee for their friendly ears,
and fruitful, extensive conversations on this topic and art practice in general.
iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………………....................…………………..iii
Abstract..............................................................................................................................................................................vi
Travel Imageries: Introduction to the Journey………………………………………………….....................…….1
Space Mythologies: Social Practices and Tourist Geography…………………………….....................……...3
Corporeal and Imaginative Travel: Looking at Travelogues and Traveling Depictions……...…...11
An Intimate Yet Distant Travel Through the Stereoscope…………………………………….......................14
Travel Imaginaries in Social Media…………………………………………………………………….......................26
Artistic Approaches to Tourist Phenomena in Social Media…………………………….…….....................28
The Artist Traveler and Travelogue in Art……………………………………………………………....................30
Another Tourist at the Falls……………………………………………………………………………….......................35
Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………………………........................37
Bibliography…………..……………………………………………………………………………………….….....................39
iv
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Unknown. The Falls of Niagara, 1697………………………………………....................……….….....6
Figure 2: Sebastian LeClerc. View of Niagara Falls with the Biblical Scene of the Prophet Elijah
on his Chariot of Fire, 1700.…………………………………………………….......................................................…...8
Figure 3: Robert Hancock. “The Waterfall of Niagara”, 1794……….……………………......................…..15
Figure 4: Underwood & Underwood. Niagara Falls Through the Stereoscope. Map of Niagara
Falls and Vicinity, 1902…………………………………………………........................................................................20
Figure 5: Underwood & Underwood. Niagara Falls Through the Stereoscope. Map of Niagara
Falls. 1902......................................................................................................................................................................22
Figure 6: Underwood & Underwood. Niagara Falls Through the Stereoscope. General View of
the Falls from the New Steel Bridge – Maid of the Mist at Landing, 1902 ……………………………22
Figure 7: Underwood & Underwood. Niagara Falls Through the Stereoscope. Admiring
Tourists Viewing the Falls from Prospect Point, 1902……………………………….........…………………..23
Figure 8: Underwood & Underwood. Niagara Falls Through the Stereoscope. Admiring
Tourists Viewing the Falls from Prospect Point, 1902…………..…………….........................................….23
Figure 9: Underwood & Underwood. Niagara Falls Through the Stereoscope. Autumn Beauties
Along Niagara’s Precipitous Banks – Looking Up Towards the Falls, 1902…………………….....…..24
Figure 10: Underwood & Underwood. Niagara Falls Through the Stereoscope. Autumn
Beauties Along Niagara’s Precipitous Banks – Looking Up Towards the Falls, 1902……………...24
Figure 11: Photograph downloaded from Panoramio……………..…………………….....................………29
Figure 12: Photograph downloaded from Panoramio...……………………………..………....................….29
Figure 13: Photograph downloaded from Trip Advisor………………………………..….....................…….30
Figure 14: Photograph downloaded from Flicker……….………………………………..…....................…….30
v
ABSTRACT
This thesis critically examines travel imagery of Niagara Falls. The intention behind this
examination is to inquire about the relationships between perception and the representation
of this speciRic site. These relationships will be introduced considering historical contexts and
aesthetic aspects of early travelogues and pictorial representations, such as early paintings
and stereoscopic images. Throughout the paper, these depictions will be compared with
today’s depictions of Niagara Falls on social media websites that involve publishing
photographs and comments that describe the visitor’s experience. By comparing distinct ways
of disseminating representations of the site organized in a chronological order, this paper
aims at unfolding critical questions about travel representations through time and media.
vi
Travel Imageries: Introduction to the Journey
Across this paper I present a wide outlook to Niagara Falls representations. In
particular, I examine representations of Niagara Falls in history, such as early explorer travel
recounts, nineteenth century travelogues, touristic guides, stereoscopic tours and social media
travel images. The purpose of this examination is to question the way we commonly perceive
and represent a place in different epochs through distinct media. Thinking about how we have
been representing the experience of being in a place implies the organization of subjects,
space, language and media as a group of concepts that unfold a genealogy of representations
in western culture. Throughout the paper the subject as an entity of experience and language
is being approached based upon the sociological framework of the tourist gaze (John Urry), as
well as the psycho-‐physiological construct of the subject’s vision through media (Jonathan
Crary). Space as an imagined and lived identity will be framed by Henry Lefebvre’s concept of
the sociological production of space, as well as the American landscape discourse formulated
by David Nye. The linguistic, economical, sociological and psychological aspects of these
distinct travel representations are being studied through diverse standpoints in accord to
Niagara Falls’ history and iconography. A socio archeological perspective is being used to
reRlect on travel as envisioned in stereoscopy and social media practices. And Rinally, as a key
for the thinking process of media artists a reRlection upon the subjective experience of travel
introduces the broad question about artists’ pursuit to produce discourses about the
perceived contemporary space. This research started about two years ago when I moved to
Buffalo, NY from Bogotá, Colombia. My previous ideas of Buffalo were merely anchored within
the city’s vicinity to Niagara Falls. The city of Buffalo looked like the setting of a post-‐
apocalyptic story. Digging into its history, I started to understand the strong inRluence that
Niagara Falls and the surrounding bodies of water have had for the past and present image of
the city. As a temporary resident the only space in which I could engage as a “global citizen”
1
seemed to be the Falls, due the fact that they seemed to be much more present in the collective
tourist’s mind than Buffalo. I started visiting the site frequently and paying attention to
visitor’s dynamics to Rind out that photography was the most common touristic practice.
Niagara Falls is known today as a world-‐famous iconic landmark for sightseeing.
Isabella L. Bird, a nineteenth-‐century English explorer, writer, and natural historian, wrote
about her experience travelling through America during 1856. Her experience is typical of the
vision of a higher-‐class woman who was able to travel to Niagara Falls when the tourism
industry was well established. At the beginning of the chapter when she describes her
journey to the falls, she reRlects upon the lead motif that encourages her to visit the site.
“Have you seen the Falls? – No.” “Then you’ve seen nothing of America.” I might have seen Treton Falls, Gennessee Falls, the falls of Montmoreci and Lorette; but I had seen nothing if I had not seen the Falls (par excellence) of Niagara. There were divers reasons why my friends in the States were anxious that I should see Niagara. One was, as I was frequently told, that all I had seen even to the “Prayers Eyes,” would go for nothing on my return; for in England, America was supposed to be a vast tract of country containing one town-‐New York; and one astonishing natural phenomenon, called Niagara. “See New York, Quebec and Niagara”, was the direction I received when I started upon my travels. I never could make out how, but somehow or other, from my earliest infancy, I had been familiar with the name of Niagara, and, from the numerous pictures I had seen of it, I could, I suppose, have sketched a very accurate likeness of the Horse-‐shoe Fall. Since I landed at Portland, I had continually met with people who went into ecstatic raptures with Niagara; and after passing within sight of its spray, and within hearing of its roar -‐after seeing it the great centre of attraction to all persons of every class-‐ my desire to see it for myself became absorbing” (Bird, 2000, 178).
By 1820, the tourism industry had taken over Niagara Falls, taking advantage of its
aesthetical values. By the time Isabella L. Bird visited America in 1854 Niagara Falls was an
icon of the country’s richness. What she wrote about her visit to the Falls shows the impact
that her social circles had on her positive preconception of the site.
2
Space Mythologies: Social Practices and Tourist Geography
Isabella Bird, as myself, was familiar with the site through the images and descriptions
by contemporaries. As many other tourists, we were acquainted with Niagara Falls through
the dissemination of the site’s representations. The idea that we had of the site, before
travelling, inRluenced our on-‐site perception of the landscape. However the assumptions that
we had about Niagara Falls came from other travelers’ experiences who where inRluenced by
yet other travelers’ narrations.
The subjects’ perception and representation of places are intertwined; preconceived
images of a place affect on-‐site experiences and representations of places are anchored in
subjective observations. From the Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies framework,
Joan Ramon Resina (2003) states that the power of images resides in the ontological gap
between perception and representation. Resina proposes the use of the term after-image, as a
formal analytical construct capturing the tight interrelation between perception and the
representation of cities. More speciRically, after-image indicates the sensation that remains
after an experience and the way “images are transformed in a cluster of possible theories
based on temporal displacements, successions, links and engagements” (Resina, 2003, 25). In
contrast to Resina’s use of the term, Jonathan Crary (1988) focuses on the psychological and
physiological aspects of the concept. For Crary, the term after-image implies reminiscence in
the absence of stimulus, a certain kind of endurance of the experience that seems as subjective
as it seems corporeal. This means that it is related to the subject and its particular cultural,
economic and social context as well as it is related to a body with a particular sensibility to the
environment. The term implies the resistance of images and experiences to fade from the
subjects mind, enforcing the liaison between the bodily experience and cultural knowledge.
The Rirst known description of Niagara Falls is presumed to be a piece of travel writing
that dates from 1684 by the Belgian Franciscan monk Louis Hennepin. Hennepin was
3
impressed by the greatness of the landmark and vowed to never have seen a cadence of water
like that (Hennepin, 1903). The Belgian monk’s experience of the Falls was deeply impacted
by his “New World” expectations. The Rirst European colonizers had a strong interest in
discovering something never before seen and in printing their names on the pages of history.
The “New World” embodied the idea of the pristine. The travel accounts of the Rirst explorers
indicate their desire for fame; they are often overstated and demonstrate their desire to
appear to have discovered something unheard of in the old world. First explorers usually
embellished their narratives with idyllic images of Niagara Falls. In Hennepin’s tale, he
compares the site with similar places in Italy and Sweden, stating that they are just sorry
patterns in comparison to what he describes in his notes. His perception of the place is based
on his idea of the “Garden of Eden.” The Rirst explorers documents are interesting foundational
narratives of the New World, opening an endless cycle of westernized imaginaries of the
American sublime. At the beginning of his narration, Hennepin states that travelers “… are
insatiable in rambling through unknown countries and kingdoms not mentioned in History;
feasting their minds with the satisfaction of gratifying and enriching the world with something
unheard of and where of they had never any idea before” (Hennepin, 1903, 23). Here, he
mentions the absence of previous ideas about the places he visited. However, it is important to
question this statement because, in spite of the absence of speciRic images of the place, there
were several imaginaries surrounding these places. These imaginaries were idealizations of
the “unexplored” that superimposed ideals over everything and everyone that was found in
the “New World”. These idealizations lead the explorers to exaggerate descriptions of their
Rindings and to impose idyllic images of distant places.
The Falls of Niagara from 1697 (Rig. 1) is, according to MacGreevy (1994), the Rirst
registered image of Niagara Falls and belongs to Hennepin´s published recounts. The
unknown artist used the explorer’s chronicle to reproduce the landscape. The engraving
seems to be divided in three main layers that can be related to Hennepin’s main observations.
4
The Rirst layer is the one closest in perspective. Here, there is a group of people observing the
falls from a narrow spot where they can hardly move. This narrowness accentuates the verge
between the observer and the cataract and points at the abysmal character of it, stated in
Hennepin’s observation: “at the foot of this horrible precipice, we meet with the river Niagara,
which is not above half a quarter of a league broad but is wonderfully deep in some
places” (Hennepin, 1903, 54).
The second layer in the image focuses on the waterfall. The artist uses strong and thin
lines with light and dark planes to describe the force of the current; emphasizing the potency
of the water falling. Finally, the third layer shows the vast territory behind the falls, an
arranged perspective of the real landscape showing the path of the water before reaching the
fall and displaying an array of pine trees which are systematically organized along the river
and are accentuating the distance between the cataract and the horizon. This image portrays
Hennepin’s frequent remarks about the distance he covered in his journey. In his text,
Hennepin seems perplexed by the cadence of the water. He describes the Rlow of the Falls as:
“waters which fall from this vast height, do foam and boil after the most hideous
manner” (Hennepin, 1903, 54), revealing both amusement and horror. He continues the
account with one description that has been studied by historians interested in his description
of the intensity of the noise produced by the fall as “outrageous noise more terrible than
thunder”, estimating later that the noise would be heard about “Rifteen leagues1
away” (Hennepin, 1903, 55).
Hennepin’s observations were a reference point for the images of Niagara Falls
produced during the eighteenth century. Even though his accounts were loudly criticized by
scientists and other travelers for their Rlamboyant tone and inaccuracy of description, his
5
1 League was a unit length common in Europe and Latin America. However there is no historical or global standard for the exact meassure of a league; it varies in time and territory. By the time Hennepin wrote his recounts the league in France is estimated as 2,4 miles.
image of the site circulated in Europe printing into the Europeans’ imagination a sense of the
newly-‐discovered land. In their eyes, the Rigure of Hennepin as an explorer monk granted the
authenticity of this distant unknown place. Louis XVI, monarch of France, ordered the printing
of his memoires of America, positioning him as a trusted Rigure in showing the land
“conquered” in America. As with many of the travel memoires of that epoch, Hennepin’s was
used by the monarchy to demonstrate its imperial expansion, and by religious orders to show
their work toward the extension of Christendom (McKinsey, 1985, 16). For intellectuals,
scientists and other travelers, his observations contained false expectations and evidence. But
to people outside the educated and political elites, his narration fed generalized and moralized
ideas about this “natural phenomenon”, that were widely disseminated in order to build an
iconography of the place. An example of this is the second known image of the Falls by
Sebastian LeClerc, a French artist who also worked for the French crown. His engraving View
of Niagara Falls with the Biblical Scene of the Prophet Elijah on his Chariot of Fire of 1700 (Rig.
Figure 1. The Falls of Niagara. Unknown,1697.
6
Figure 1. Unknown,.The Falls of Niagara , 1697.
2), is a trace of earlier Christian visions of nature. More than an iconic image for travel
imaginaries, it’s a sample of the association that the site had with popular religious beliefs.
Today there are discrete common associations of the falls with the aesthetics of the
religious sublime. On June 15 of 2012, Nick Wallenda, a nationally recognized high-‐wire artist,
performed a televised tightrope crossing over Niagara Falls. During his performance he was
praising Jesus and dedicating his performance to his dead grandfather who died during a
tightrope crossing in Puerto Rico in 1978. The relation of the event with religious groups was
also visible at the entrance of the spectacle, with some devotees handing out Rlyers that invited
people to join prayer groups2. People on social networks like Twitter published comments
that sympathized with Wallenda’s performance, validating it as something more than a mere
spectacle, but rather a true manifestation of courage inspired by religious beliefs.
My point here is to underline the fact that ideologies are not embedded in the site itself,
but are related to practices that use the site as scenery emphasizing the value of the social
practice. In this case, Niagara Falls does not have direct associations with religious practices,
but in this event the site was used as scenery that intensiRied Wallenda’s performance. The
site’s function in Wallenda’s performance corresponded to what Henri Lefebvre (1991) calls,
representational space, which is the “space directly lived through its associated images and
symbols. It overlays physical space, making symbolic use of its objects” (Lefebvre, 1991, 42).
Lefebvre see space as a complex set of social relations. He proposes perceived, conceived and
lived space as main tools for analyzing the social production of space.
This produced space is formed by three overlapping social constructions: spatial
practices related to perception; representations of the space related to maps, monuments, as
7
2 Report of the event at http://www.hufRingtonpost.com/2012/06/15/stuntman-‐nik-‐wallenda-‐com_n_1601887.html http://www.hufRingtonpost.com/2012/06/15/stuntman-‐nik-‐wallenda-‐com_n_1601887.html
Figure 2. Sebastian LeClerc. View of Niagara Falls with the Biblical Scene of the Prophet Elijah on his Chariot of Fire, 1700.
well as any form of narrative of space that is meant to design some sort of usability; and
representational spaces that are related to the imaginary, and do not need to obey rules of
uniformity or persistence. These representational spaces are loaded with symbolisms rooted
to the history of an individual as well as a community. This layer of the space could be seen as
reductionist, speculative and ambiguous. However, space representations are a dynamic
contestation between present and past ideologies, as reductionist that it might seem as if the
representational space is still “alive: it speaks… It embraces the loci of passion, of action and of
lived situations “ (Lefebvre, 1991, 42).
The representational aspects of Niagara Falls and the social impact of the site are
deeply rooted in the notion of the sublime that became commonly associated the American
landscape. The sublimity of the landscape achieved a political role that turned it into a major
point of America’s national identity. In doing so it became the main feature to be staged to
outside visitors as well as Americans travelling around the territory. For the historian David
Nye (1996), the American landscape is a source of national character and the spots that
portray the sublime aspects of the Falls are to be considered places that travelers must visit in
Figure 2. View of Niagara Falls with the Biblical Scene of the Prophet Elijah on his Chariot of Fire. Sebastian LeClerc, 1700.
8
order to have an authentic experience of the place. Indeed, to provide visitors with a sublime
perspective of the site became a technological quest that encouraged the construction of
bridges, railroads, paths underneath the falls and many other developments that beneRit from
the social impact of the sublime.
By the early nineteenth century, Niagara Falls was a common tourist destination due to
the opening of the Erie Canal and later on, after the rail road connected Niagara Falls with
important urban areas of the northern part of the United States, became accessible to mass
tourism. The greater accessibility of the site, as well as the change in the way people in that
epoch perceived nature due to its common representations, promptly diminished the
perception of sublimity imprinted into nature and reduced it into what art historians called
“picturesque” (McKinsey, 1985). In so doing, the Falls ended up as beautiful scenery that
allows tourist attractions to beneRit from and merged with the scene.
A linguistically anchored perspective of representational space and the way tourists
interact within this space, can be found in John Urry’s (1990) spatial and sociological theory of
tourism. Urry pulls out from Jonathan Culler’s (1981) deconstruction in literature a semiotic
base to afRirm that ¨tourists are semioticians, reading the landscape for signiRiers of certain
pre-‐established notions of signs derived from various discourses of travel and tourism ̈ (Urry,
1990, 12). They classify, decode, and encode experiences and representations of a space as
they also communicate them. As tourists, we are immersed in a kind of loop of signs where we
preview an imaginary place before actually visiting it, read the space through a map of iconic
landscapes and places, experience the space with our own body, capture a sight with a camera,
and later we merge these images of icons mixed with our own experiences with yet another
narration of that space.
Ernest Sternberg (1997) studied the economical aspect of the iconography of Niagara
Falls. He uses Erwin Panofsky’s (1972) concept of motifs, iconography and iconology to build a
9
categorization that tourism industry applies to sell touristic packages. Sternberg’s study
considers motifs as guidelines used for designing a stage for tourists. The Falls in the
Ecosystem – the Rirst theme of Sternberg’s study –, shows the importance of the natural
environment recognizing the site as the Rirst State Park in American history in 1885. As many
natural heritage sites, it grants a special position for the contemplation of nature, providing
the visitors with scenic paths to engage with nature. Sternberg calls the second theme, The
Falls as Terror and associates it with the threatening aspects of the falls. Terror is easily
associated with the macabre and as such, it is common to Rind local tourist establishments that
stage Frankenstein and haunted houses, Dracula’s castles or even wax museums. Sternberg’s
concept The Falls as Adventure coincides with Nye’s technological sublime3 concept (1996)
which points at the high praise granted to technology visible in railroads, canals and other
major structures that celebrate America’s economic power. The tourist industry provides
different ways to enjoy the sublimity of the falls by means of technology; jetboats, Imax
theaters, the Maid of the Mist and Cave of the Winds are examples of the way technology plays
a role in the touristic experience of Niagara Falls. Sternberg’s fourth theme, underlined by the
author is acknowledged by the social sciences as negative heritage, meaning that even though
it is part of the site’s history, it is consciously dismissed because of the bad image that this
topic gives to visitors (Meskell, 2012).
The Falls as Technological Wonder comes from the hydroelectric development of
Niagara in the late 1890’s. For the majority of people hydroelectric power proved humanity’s
victory over nature, representing the beginning of a new human order (McGreevy, 1994, 106).
This exaggerated positivism over technology allowed the ediRication of futuristic buildings and
factories in the city, especially along the river. Today, the devastating damage to the
environment brought by factories and industrial projects, inspired by the promise of endless
10
3 The concept of the technological sublime is not original to Nye. It was developed by Perry Miller in 1965 in his study The Life of the Mind in America. In his book Miller noted the high praise granted to the experience of new technologies in the early republic, such as the steamboat in Mark Twain scenes.
power resources is visible in the city’s economy and avoided in mainstream tourist packages.
Finally, The Falls as Romance, is associated with the dualities: eros-‐thanatos, death-‐ life, hate-‐
love. There is a never-‐ending Rlood of weddings and honeymooners coming to Niagara Falls,
proving a substantial clientele to luxury hotel rooms, chapels and wine tasting packages
The mythological and ideological aspects of the site framed in Sternberg’s themes are
noticeable in the overall touristic staging of the two cities (Canadian and American Niagara
Falls) achieving concreteness in tourism as a social practice. Ideology, as Lefebvre points out,
“only achieves consistency by intervening in social space and in its production” (Lefebvre,
1991,44). In this way, dissecting the site into abstract notions helps to point out the
relationship between ideology, space and social practice in the particular case of Niagara.
These thematizations draw an overall context that relates touristic production with the
symbolic order of space and the way these symbols affect and are affected by people.
Corporeal and Imaginative Travel: Looking at Travelogues and Traveling Depictions
In historic travelogues, journals and recounts of Niagara Falls the reader’s presence is
implied in the narrative structure. The reader is intentionally carried by the writer’s journey
envisioning the space as if being there. Their actions are placed in second person singular and
Rirst person plural. The author seems to allocate the reader as an imaginary companion
situated in the scene. When the writer uses you directly referring to the reader, the latter is
invited to take the position of the writer:
“The sight of such an immense river, pouring down so close to you from the top of
the precipice, and the thundering sound of the water, dashing against the rocks,
together with the danger of tumbling from the slippery rock on which you
stand” (Mister 1818, 160).
11
The use of you is an ambiguous form that implies the presence of the reader within the
author’s experience; the text suggests that his or her experience is not unique and if someone
would be able to be there, that person would supposedly have exactly the same experience.
The author doesn’t claim the narration as a distinctive personal point of view — as it could be
inferred from I as the personal pronoun—, but the writer introduces the situation described
as a common event like others.
The second person is also used as a way to advise or direct how the reader should enjoy
the scenery through the voice of an experienced observer:
“The time is a grand point in viewing these scenes to perfection. It is not in the glare
of the noon day, when all around is rich and gay with the reRlection of the radiant
sunbeam: It is not in the company of laughter-‐loving, thoughtless youth; It is rather
by yourself alone, at sunrise, when the mists are rising in their majesty, like incense
up to heaven” (Burke, 1855, 105).
This kind of approach is common in the different text guides to Niagara Falls. The previous
excerpt belongs to the touristic guidebook called Burke’s illustrated Guide to Niagara Falls,
written in Buffalo, New York in 1855. Throughout the whole book, the reader is directed step
by step through the major attractions of the place, (s)he is told exactly what to do, akin to
what nowadays is performed by a tourist guide: “You have now seen Termination Rock. Let us
return and change our wet clothes – register your name, take a certiRicate of your visit to this
wonderful spot, rest, view the curiosities of the Museum, and return to the ferry” (Burke,
1855, 79).
Besides the use of the second person, the use of the Rirst person plural is common as a
way to incorporate the reader in an undeRined group of people. “The sublimity of the scene
increases at every step; but when we come upon the mighty Cataract, we [italics added] gaze
in speechless wonder” (Hunter, 1857, 12). The use of we directly implies that the narrator is
12
not alone, yet is surrounded by an unspeciRied group of people that are affected exactly the
same way.
”But now we are standing on the cliffs above, and to get down we enter at the top of
a round tower, by which you descend a narrow spiral staircase, wondering, after a
while, if there is any bottom to it. You may meet other parties half-‐way, coming up,
and ask them that question, and perhaps receive the same reply that I did: Is there
any top to this screw concern?” (National Magazine, 1855, Vol 7, p 452)
In this Rinal example, the author assumes that the reader will visit the same spot, have the
same thoughts and obtain the same answers. The use of second person pronouns enforces the
step-‐by-‐step instructional tone to explain how to perceive the place, guiding the reader
through something they are not familiar with and assuming that the travel experience will be
the same for everyone. These travelogues standardize the experience of the place and invite
the reader to embody their narrations.
In the case of Niagara Falls this embodiment is mostly scopic. Niagara Falls’ value as a
touristic venue mostly relies upon sightseeing. The aesthetic aspects of the landscape yield
privilege to the view. The traveler Mary Mister for example, describes the way the observer is
most likely to explore the site as follows: “The astonishment excited by the vastness of the
different objects, is so great, that the eye cannot take in a whole of it at once; it must by
degrees become acquainted with the several parts of the scene, each of which is, in itself, an
object of wonder” (Mister, 1818, 157). She underlines the active role of the eye to appreciate
the scenic layers.
American and European painters understood this aspect of the site as well, and saw it
as an ideal subject for panoramic paintings to show the aesthetic value of the landmark’s
dimensions. Niagara Falls was also an ideal theme for moving panoramas, urban theatrical
spectacles that emplaced the representation of an unknown location, sating the visual
curiosity of urbanites and tourists (Huhtamo, 2002). Some other representations that
13
beneRited from the aesthetics of the Falls and which operated as didactic cultural and
geographical sources were the perspective views — or Vues D'optique — and the stereograph.
These representations translocate the landscape bringing it to the viewer through an optic
device. These two forms of representation can be understood as “media for virtual
voyaging” (Huhtamo, 2006, 94), which were unlike the moving panoramas, in which the
landscape was emplaced in another location. Both of them served as popular travel imageries
and the context in which these representations were used shows their extended
dissemination.
Perspective views were popular -‐early eighteenth century-‐ prints designed for peep
shows that used a magnifying lens to enhance the sense of depth perception drawn in the
print. Perspective views inside peep shows were crowd-‐pleasing representations suitable for
souvenirs and public entertainment displays that travel from market to market around
Europe. Robert Hancock´s “The Waterfall of Niagara” of 1794 (Rig. 3) was a popular
perspective view of Niagara Falls. The tight resemblance of this image with 1697’s The Falls of
Niagara (Rig. 1), assure the massive circulation of Hennepin’s depiction, propagating his
perception of Niagara Falls in Europe by its mass reproduction. Hancock´s print, just like
Hennepin’s recounts, were popular pageant depictions of the site.
An Intimate Yet Distant Travel Through the Stereoscope
Stereoscopic4 photography was also common to transpose the spectator into a visual
almost tactile experience of a distant place. However, unlike the perspective views it was used
as a common home entertainment display. They were sold in packages or separately as
14
4 Stereoscopy gives the illusion of depth by presenting two offset images separately to the left and right eye of the viewer. The images are combined by the viewer’s brain giving the sensation of a three dimensional image. These images were seen through stereoscopes, equipped with lenses that enlarge and shift the image apparent horizontal position to facilitate the brain process.
collectible cards that the user could appreciate at their pace in the comfort of their home.
Stereoscopy was an intimate medium that involved the spectator in a detailed visual closeness
with the place; the experience of watching images through the stereoscope was related to the
immersive experience that a reader had with a book. Within the book’s author–reader
relationship the reader was guided by the author’s words. Erkki Huhtamo describes the
stereoscope as a “parlor apparatus” preRiguring the social impact of television and states that
the stereoscope “brought the outside world to the privacy of the Victorian parlor, preparing
the ground for the phonograph, the radio and the television” (Huhtamo, 2006, 99). He
criticizes the assumption of the stereoscope as an armchair travel tool for solitary experience,
isolating the viewer from his social surroundings. Through an observation of how the device
was portrayed by other media, he points out how it was used in family settings where the
activity of watching stereographs was an intimate, yet social practice. With this observation he
redirects the discourse about immersion and emplacement to consider the activity of sharing
experiences. This activity involved exchanging individuals’ tastes and personal observations of
the stereo card, reafRirming the signiRicance of the site as well as determining the aspects of
Figure 3. “The Waterfall of Niagara”. Robert Hancock´s . 1794.
15
each scene that each individual found engaging. The way people engage with distant sites
through the stereoscope can be related to the way people exchange their travel experiences
through Internet. The possibility of seeing a distant site through google maps and
photographs uploaded to social media applications is the most common way in which people
nowadays envision unknown places and share with other on-‐site experiences. I personally
found this resemblance interesting and started to dig into the nuances of stereoscopy, in order
to propose an artistic project that could show people outside of the United States and Canada
my own impressions of the site. I was interested in depicting Niagara Falls in a way that shows
the importance of the visual heritage of the site without showing the vast amount of images
produced about it. Another Tourist at The Falls is a project that uses the stereoscopic tour
model to suggest the visual load of the site, merged with my own perspective of the place
today. The project combines the distant touristic experience of the middle nineteenth
hundreds with the gaze of a contemporary touristic experience in order to show foreigners my
own perception of Niagara Falls today using an old-‐fashioned device.
Stereoscopy is based on the impression of depth obtained through the brain process of
binocular vision. Stereopsis (the scientiRic term for binocular vision) is the ability of humans to
perceive the space through both eyes. When seeing, we create two slightly different images
that correspond to each eye and their distinctive position in relation with the object observed.
These two images provide differentiable depth cues through which the brain can process the
volumetric aspects of space and` perceive objects’ roundness and their position related to
each other, as a single three dimensional image (Lipton, 1940).
Photography reRines the immersive sensation of stereopsis providing the experience
with a sense of reality. “The combination of photography and stereopsis made the scenes seem
life-‐like, although the stereoscopic illusion was highly artiRicial” (Huhtamo, 2006).
Photography gives a fairly accurate rendering of size, perspective, interposition of objects,
light and (most importantly) a Rixed focal point that facilitates the convergence needed in
16
stereopsis to merge the images in a three-‐dimensional representation. The stereoscope
facilitated and promoted the immersive effect. Considering that it is possible to merge both
images without any device, it is important to acknowledge the role that the apparatus plays in
the viewing experience. It accomplished this with two lenses that enlarge the images,
providing proximity to the image viewed. And lastly but no less important, the stereoscopic
apparatus was equipped with a hood that isolated the eyes from elements distracting from the
surroundings. These three core features —photography, the magnifying lenses and the hood
— allow stereoscopic devices to provide a realistic effect. They facilitate the brain’s activity
and provide the viewer with a steady emplacement in the representational space.
The realistic effect of stereoscopy impressed large crowds in the nineteenth century.
Jonathan Crary (1988) discussed that stereoscopy confounded visual proximity with
tangibility. Crary studied Charles Wheatstone’s observations on physiology of vision to explain
how the optic axes of both eyes differed when observing objects far from the viewer in
comparison to objects nearby. When we see objects close to our face the images from each eye
are forced to converge. Otherwise, the axes of both eyes seem parallel. The three-‐ dimensional
effect is achieved by the interposition of the eye’s images; if the axes are parallel and the
images are similar the trick doesn’t work.
In that sense, for a stereograph to have a realistic, three-‐dimensional effect, the frame
must be compounded with different elements that differ in distance from the viewer. A
successful stereoscopic effect is related to the amount and proximity of the layers on the
frame’s composition. For Crary, the stereoscope is a breaking point of visual culture by the
eradication of the point of view. He understands that in the stereoscope perspective is no
longer the link between the observer and the object observed, because the “observer no
longer sees an image that has an intelligible or quantiRiable location in space, but rather a
hallucinatory composite of two dissimilar images whose positions refer to the anatomical
structure of the observer's body” (Crary, 1988). This aspect of the stereographic technique
17
was important during the production stage of Another Tourist at the Falls project. While going
through the site with two identical cameras and setting the parallel distance within each other
in relation to the object framed, I decided to slightly change the focal point of each camera in
order to defeat the hallucinatory trick. I found that even though the images weren’t identical
in their focal points, the tactile impression still remains.
Stereoscopic packaged tours of different places around the world were widely
disseminated. Underwood & Underwood and Keystone View Company were the major early
producers and distributors of these kinds of stereoscopic tours that consisted of around 18 to
20 stereographs packaged with a guidebook and a map of the site. The cloth-‐bound product
resembled a book to be put on the shelves of a domestic library. The images contained in the
product corresponded to popular spots for sightseeing and alluded to the site atmosphere. But
also they intend to depict the sublime tone of early recounts, through poetic language. Image
tittles like Nature’s Everlasting Smile, Majestic Niagara Rolling in Ceaseless Roar, Looking at the
Tumbling Foaming Waters (Underwood & Underwood, 1902) contained words that engaged
the viewer in an atmosphere advertised as an spectacle to be witnessed.
Each title corresponded to an enumerated image that also had a description in the
travel guide as well as on the back of the stereo card. The number on each image was used to
index the respective description, but most importantly it served to allocate where the
photograph was taken on the map. There were two maps in the guide book, the Rirst one was
the Map of Niagara Falls and Vicinity (Rig. 4) that laid out the territory that corresponds with
the course of the Niagara River before the Falls until the river’s way out to Lake Ontario. It
positioned the Niagara Falls area in a wider scope via the river’s course, showing its position
in relation to Lake Erie, Lake Ontario and the urban areas nearby. The second one, Map of
Niagara Falls (Rig. 5) corresponded to an enlarged representation of the State Park area at
both sides, the Canadian as well as the American. Both maps marked with red circumscribe
the exact location where each photograph was taken, projecting from each spot a red line that
18
showed the area covered by the camera frame. Doing so they expanded the image outside the
rectangular marquee of the Rilm and provided an additional layer that broke the two-‐
dimensional aspect of the photograph in the schematic representation of the map. This feature
authenticates the location of the photographic image through cartography, facilitating the
spectators Rictional travel emplacement.
The Niagara Falls stereoscopic tours conRlated different aspects of the travel
experience. They allocated the landmark in the spatial representation of the maps providing a
scientiRic tone that differed from that of the images and travelogues analyzed before. They
provoked an optical almost tactile experience of space through the three-‐dimensional effect.
The life–like aspect of the photographic image serves as a proof of the moment in time,
enhancing the experience of being in the place, provoking a sense of the past through a seeing-‐
experience in the present (Sontag, 1977; Barthes, 1974). And Rinally, it evoked previous
ideologies conferred to the site on a symbolic level. These four aspects intend to give the
consumer a full experience of the site. In my own stereoscopic tour, I didn’t relate site-‐speciRic
information, but a set of comments that resemblance what tourist nowadays post on social
media websites about their own experience on site. This decision was made in order to
dissociate myself from the guiding tone that these tour guides commonly have. Yet relating
my comments to the ordinary observation of an outsider.
The Rirst image of the tour sets an overall view of the falls giving the spectator an idea
of the size of the landmark (Rig. 6). The description that corresponds to this image gives
details about the position of the camera in relation to the river. It then mentions the names of
the spots and elements seen in the frame: Maid of the Mist, Luna Falls, Luna Island, American
and Canadian Horseshoe Falls, as well references places outside the frame such as: Prospect
Point, Buffalo and New York City. At the end of the description the reader is guided to the
second point of observation as follows: “Now we go to Prospect Point at the very edge of the
American Falls. On the map just above and to the right of the America Falls we Rind a section of
19
territory ruled off and named Prospect Park. At the southern side of this Park next to the river
is Prospect Point and Plaza. From there two red lines branch out which show what is to be the
limit of our vision as we look from our next position. The line to the right runs only to Goat
Figure 4. Map of Niagara and Vicinity. Underwood & Underwood. Niagara Falls Through the Stereoscope. 1902.
20
Island with the Rigure 2 at its end there.” Distinctively different from the early travelogues, in
which the traveler is smoothly transported to the next spot by a narration, the stereoscopic
tour conRides the narrative task to the map, abstracting the observations along the path and
going directly from point to point.The overall description that comes with this image is highly
informational, however, there is a peculiar remark that suggests someone that might be at the
top of the cliff watching the cataract, “One person at least can be seen now at the very edge
leaning on a railing that can scarcely be noticed from here.” (Underwood & Underwood, 1902,
7) This observation places the reader in a more casual tour setting. Anticipating the reader to
the second spot where (s)he meets the people (s)he supposedly saw in the previous spot. The
text combines information and Riction, positioning the spectator between immersion and
detachment.
The next spot is called Admiring Tourists Viewing the Falls from Prospect Point, Niagara
(Rig. 7 and Rig.8, correspond to different editions of Niagara Falls Through the Stereoscope
published by Underwood and Underwood). The stereographs of this spot show a group of
tourists from Prospect Point observing the cataract. The description that comes along with the
stereographs tries to recreate aspects of the visual experience: “if you have the power of eye-‐
control which is so necessary to the full enjoyment of scenery, you will see nothing but the
water. That converging rush of water may fall down, down at once into a hell of rivers for what
the eye can see. It is glorious to watch them in their Rirst curve over the rocks. They come
green as a bank of emeralds; but with a Ritful Rlying color, as though conscious that in one
moment more they would be dashed into spray and rise into air, pale as driven
snow.“ (Underwood & Underwood, 1902, 7) The description is focused on the time needed to
observe the visual phenomenon bringing some kind of motion to the static images; it
fantasizes about the tourists view at the moment when the picture was taken, commenting
about colors and the wholistic visual experience. Later on the description ads “We are looking
at the same scene of grandeur here, but how different if we could know them, would we Rind
21
the thoughts and feelings which are being stirred in these different people.” (Underwood &
Underwood, 1902, 10) Here the different effects that the view has in every person is
22
Figure 5. Map of Niagara Falls from Niagara Falls Through the Stereoscope. Underwood & Underwood. 1902.
Figure 6. General View of the Falls from the New Steel Bridge – Maid of the Mist at Landing. Niagara Falls Through the Stereoscope. Underwood & Underwood. 1902.
acknowledged. Furthermore, it is acknowledge the importance of sharing the experience with
others, as a way to reshape individual thoughts about the landscape through a constant
exchange of points of view.
23
Figure 7. Admiring Tourists Viewing the Falls from Prospect Point. Niagara Falls Through the Stereoscope. Underwood & Underwood. 1902.
Figure 8. Admiring Tourists Viewing the Falls from Prospect Point. Niagara Falls Through the Stereoscope. Underwood & Underwood. 1902.
The spot number 14 is called Autum Beauties Along Niagara’s Precipitous Banks,
Looking Up Towards the Falls (Rig.9 and Rig.10). This image is centered around the evocative
female Rigure and her passive posture as she is laying down in the grass to contemplate the
landscape. This framing corresponds to a picturesque vision and feminization of nature. It
Figure 9. Autumn Beauties Along Niagara’s Precipitous Banks – Looking Up Towards the Falls. Niagara Falls Through the Stereoscope. Underwood & Underwood.
Figure 10. Autumn Beauties Along Niagara’s Precipitous Banks – Looking Up Towards the Falls. Niagara Falls Through the Stereoscope. Underwood & Underwood.
24
would be out of the scope of this text to enter into a deep analysis of gender iconography and
its associations with landscape representations. However, it is important to underline that the
presence of this type of image in the set, shows the heterogeneity of the narrative approach in
the stereoscopic tour. Throughout the material we Rind romantic images of the landscape,
facts, Rictions, anecdotes, sensational annotations and geographical data. Combining objective
and subjective layers of the site, the tour gives a heterogeneous outlook of the place that
pleases a broad and demographically varied target audience.
The novelty of the technological device and the mixed tone of the narrative gave these
stereoscopic products a successful place in the market. Its mass reproduction and
dissemination helped to spread a fragmented and abstracted gaze onto places. Huhtamo lists a
large number of inRluential aspects for the strong social acceptance of the stereoscope, such as
“social, political, economic and cultural factors, including colonialism, global capitalism, new
means of transportation, the beginnings of modern tourism and the increasing curiosity
towards the world beyond one’s immediate surroundings” (Huhtamo, 2006). For Jonathan
Crary this phenomenon is part of a whole apparatus of governance where the observer has
been reshaped by structures that dominate aesthetic production. These structures guide the
subject into a way of seeing through devices like the stereoscope or the peepshows that “Ritted
for the task of spectacular consumption” (Crary 1993, 19). Stereoscopic tours were mass-‐
produced in America by big companies that progressively developed stereoscopic content to
enter European markets. The product started to be sold mainly for educational purposes that
beneRit from the detached tone of an author. The objective and subjective layers of the
narration provided an abstracted and fragmented image of a place. The device shifted from
what Huhtamo calls a Victorian parlor device to an educational tool sold to schools, evolving
later into a toy. The view-master5 was a later device that followed the genealogy of the
stereoscope. It picked up where the stereoscope left off instilling new generations with the
25
5 The view-‐master is a special kind of marketed stereoscope that uses a thin cardboard disk to set pairs of small color photographs. It was introduced to the market in 1939.
same nostalgia. The view-‐master, turned into a didactic toy as such, is a great tool of “soft
manipulation” that prepares consumers for the aesthetics of what and how to see.
The study of scopic phenomena through the consumerist framework of tourism as a
form of mass production suggests the spectator and the viewer as consumer. This is a
phenomenon that reverberates throughout contemporary discussions of the “consumer-‐
producer” and social media, which shall be discussed in the following chapter. By the time
Underwood and Underwood, Keystone View Company and others produced images of the
falls, the ideological landscape of travel changed from one of authoritarian imagination to one
of commoditization.
Travel Imageries and Social Media
The representations analyzed through out the paper were chosen for the character of
their circulation and their social impact. In that way, it was possible to determine how travel
fantasies disseminate. The narrative structure was analyzed to scrutinize the way the body is
emplaced in the representational product. The observations lead us to understand that by
emplacing the reader/ viewer/ user/consumer in the representational space, he/she engages
in the consumption of these representations. Yet he/she is also involved in the reproduction
by replicating the symbolic abstraction of the space in later social interactions. The social
mediation of images is fundamental for the perception/representation liaison. Unfortunately
representations as well as perceptions can be misused as tools for power control impacting
people’s psyche. Tourism studies understand the economic power of images and their social
context observing the Rlow of signs in which tourists are both consumers and producers.
Social media representations are also immerse in this transaction of signs functioning as the
network in which travel economies circulate today.
The phenomenon of tourism is a new kind of pilgrimage that responds to an urge to
26
visit sites loaded with signs. The tourist gaze as John Urry calls it is “constructed through
signs, and tourism involves the collection of [those] signs” (Urry, 1990, 3). For Urry these
places are chosen because there is anticipation to the site by “daydreaming and fantasy, of
intense pleasures . . . Such anticipations come from non-‐touristic practices such as Rilm, TV,
literature, magazine, records and videos, which construct and reinforce” the tourist gaze (Urry,
1990, 3). 6 And they also come from mobile social media embedded in contemporary travel
practices. Tourists keep feeding the idea of most sites as a “must be seen” landmark. They
share their experiences through social media websites such as Facebook, Panoramio, Twitter,
Instagram, Trip Advisor and others. The experience is shared through photographs or short
status messages that vary depending on each subject’s interest, however in the Niagara Falls
case, as well as other major touristic sites, they are undeniably inRluenced by the structure
already in place. The image and comments posted online seem interchangeable because they
all come from the same space design and are fed with the same technology. Touristic spaces
such as Niagara Falls are designed following basic rules of safety and use common elements
that are repeatedly seen in most public spaces. Information bulletins, paths, handrails,
parking lots, sightseeing areas, restaurants, cabins and stairs follow standards of design that
intend to organize crowds that are literate to this space designs.
The tourism industry, routes of transportation and the ability to share travel
experiences through social media, are aspects that contribute to a homogenization of the
experience and representation of travel. These aspects democratize the early travel model by
providing a commodious access to the place as well as to the representational production and
dissemination. This accessibility has been called democratization of travel and technology.
However the term can be conRlicting, because far from being a democratic model,
contemporary tourism is more an economic and technological mode of accessibility for an
27
6 In Niagara Falls’ case these anticipations come from a strong constructed National Heritage, and the layers associated with power generation, native history, colonization and the Rirst tourist site in the United States. All these factors produced a site loaded with history in its most abstract and symbolic level.
ever-‐growing global middle class and the Rinancial structures that allow people to enter in
Rinancial debts in order to sate the thirsts for travel and escape from their daily routines.
The examples analyzed here trace a shift from a one-‐sided travel discourse , to a fairly
homogeneous discourse emerged in the late nineteenth century and ending up in a corporate
travel discourse that claims to be simply educational. The examples of travel imaginaries on
social media websites nowadays seem more intimate yet completely public. But it is still
immersed in a pervasive mode of sign economy. The travelers’ posts online do not intend to
guide others through the site; the author’s intentions to reveal or educate others differ from
early predecessors. During the late nineteenth century travelogues guided the future traveler
to the space by recounting their experiences. Today’s travelers do not intend to guide future
travelers to the place as their predecessors did; there are already maps and guides for that.
Instead they certify their presence in the site, taking pictures of themselves as part of the
landmark and publishing brief comments critiquing their experience. They are sharing
experiences, comments, and photographs – basically data – with other users through a social
network. This shareability is embedded in daily social practices and is used consciously and
unconsciously for economic purposes.
Artistic Approaches to Tourist Phenomena in Social Media
To produce artworks that resonate with personal experience is important for artists.
While living in Buffalo, I saw myself as a tourist and in doing so, I produce a set of pieces that
show my outsider point of view to the place. A previous project addressing this topic allowed
me to observe the kind of pictures that Niagara Falls tourists publish online. This observation
lead me to produce a piece called I am in Niagara that consist of an installation work that
recreates the experience of visiting Niagara Falls through tourist images and videos that have
been published on the Internet. The piece consists of a projected collage of 1300 images and
28
Figure 11. Photograph download from Panoramio.
Figure 12. Photograph download from Panoramio.
29
Figure 13. Photograph download from Trip Advisor.
Figure 14. Photograph download from Flicker.
30
50 audio archives from videos that previous tourist upload to Facebook, Flicker, Panoramio
and Youtube. There is deRinitely a process of selection in the images that people upload, but
they all tend to be the same. I observed that in the photographs taken on the site, people
always post a recurrent composition that shows the falls as a background while they face the
camera; positioning their body image in the scene. The park is arranged in a way that almost
every spot of the site is a photogenic one, along the river the handrail is used as a threshold
that divides the composition in two layers, one where the subject is posing and a second layer
that contains the landscape. Of course, it is acknowledged that this is meant for safety
purposes, but the structure of the park homogenizes the images taken at the site by limiting
people’s mobility.
Even though there are major differences between the experiences of being in the site from
tourist to tourist, the images that they publish are noticeably homogeneous. These tourists
visit the same spots and take the same images over and over, feeding the same structure of the
site representations. Even though the experience might be completely different, their
photographs mimic previous photographs. Each individual has the tools to represent their
own experience but the experience and the technology is enclosed in the same structure of the
tourism industry and the technology market. Virtual, imaginative or corporeal travel (as the
three main components of travel that Urry sees in the tourism structure), end up merged into
a homogenized collective experience. The struggle for authenticity is still alive and some
tourist promoters try hard to deviate the attention from the scenic aspects to current political
aspects that are associated with the negative heritage of toxic waste and the harm to the
environment that the ideals of progress imprinted on the site. However this is not what
common tourists come to visit, they want the icon they envisioned.
Like the travelogues that emplaced the reader using subject pronouns and like the
stereoscope that used stereopsis to simulate embodiment, social media make use of geo
tagging to attest traveler emplacement. There is no Hennepinian intention of invitation within
31
the traveler experience, however. Travelers solidify their position through technology. Tagging
photographs can be done with a computer after the picture was taken or at the time the photo
is taken via cameras with built in GPS. But beyond the technologic attribute, travelers are
aware of the importance of certifying their presence within the picture frame, as observed in I
am in Niagara project. The possibility to reassure their presence with GPS technology asserts
the relevance of emplacing the body in the representations. Geo-‐tagged photographs contain
geographical information that consist of longitude and latitude coordinates, and through geo-‐
coding the place name is appended. The use of smartphones on Twitter posts is also a
practice that asserts the interests of travelers to authenticate their location. In the
stereoscopic tour maps we observed this tendency through the red circles that gave the users
an objective layer that attested the position of the camera, assuring the veracity of the
elements that composed the frame. Mobile devices lean on this feature as an extension of the
body, pulling geographical information from the device to position the user’s body.
The photographic image recalls past memories of being in a place (Benjamin, Barthes,
Sontag), but the amount of images and the speed of the Rlow of their circulation restrain the
contemplative character once perceived in the printed photograph, rather, it liberates a mere
Rlow of data. The subjective experience embedded in the practice of taking pictures and
sharing thoughts while travelling is now used as a tool for social quantitative research. This
kind of approach of the social sciences understands human behavior as herds categorized by
consuming habits.
Another previous project related to the topic allowed me to study Twitter feeds related
to Niagara Falls. The connected Souvenir project was an attempt to display subjective
experiences of the site by means of data. The project challenged the status of the souvenir as a
dispositive of static remembrance by establishing a real-‐time communication with other
people's experience. The souvenir – a snow globe-‐like object – turns on and off in accordance
with Twitter feeds posted about Niagara Falls. The impossibility to discern tourist experiences
32
from advertising or any other uses of the pair of words – Niagara, Falls – ends up being a
coding constraint. The difRiculties of applying an effective Rilter that parses the feeds and
Rilters tourist comments from any other kind of comments, questions the primary purpose of
this speciRic project to depict subjective experiences through data as a kind of remembrance of
the site. The incongruent aspects of the posts about Niagara Falls show the abstract level that
the analysis of data confers to subjectivity. Twitter is an alternative way to disseminate
information from individuals, yet it ends up serving as a replica of the world breaking news
and events of the mainstream. As in any other project that intend to use Twitter feeds, these
project do not reRlect the speciRicity of the site but the varied and heterogeneous Rlow of data
on social media applications. The project asserted the shortcomings of qualitative research
through data and the contradictions in the observation of memory through data Rlow.
The Artist Traveler and Travelogue in Art
In the travelogues observed before, the author has a visible point of view and a
privileged position in recounting experiences, yet this image is a messianic construction. In
the case of stereoscopic tours, publishers held a detached position providing the consumer
with an apparent control of emplacement fantasies. Today’s tourism industry structure seems
transparent in giving the traveler freedom and voice to publish their experience, but results in
a standard design of leisure that falls into a mockery of the phenomenon of travelling. If this is
the case, is not accurate to categorize travel representations of Niagara Falls through social
media as travel imagery, because the subjectivity in social media travel phenomena seems
concealed by the place design. Furthermore, the common used of Internet and photographs
seems to Rlatten the richness of each individual’s experience. The search for an authentic
experience appears pointless in the Rlow of representations of this speciRic site.
Chris Marker, Dominique Gonzalez-‐Foerster, Mary Ellen Strom & Ann Carlson, Rirkrit
33
Tiravanija and Michael Naimark are artists committed to represent certain layers of places
that seem problematic. Marker and Gonzalez-‐Foerster engage in the lure of the poetic psycho-‐
socio-‐geographic portraits of a place. Marker’s approach Rlows into a power struggle between
the presence of himself as a thinker of social phenomena, and the voice of the subjects and
spatial contexts he frames with the camera. Gonzalez-‐Foerster position herself in between “a
tourist’s outsider eye and a voyeur’s intruding gaze” (Monteiro, 2010, 40). To depict a
representational dystopia, her voice is disguised by the use of poetic subtitles, but her body is
insinuated by a shaky camera, and her conscious non-‐professional audiovisual techniques.
Mary Ellen Strom & Ann Carlson detached their subjective experience to display a didactic
approach to the American West mythologies in a project called Geyser Land. In it they display
the history of the landscape to confront cultural ideology and the economic reality of the site’s
past and present. Rirkrit Tiravanija places his voice in the bureaucratic yet personal image of
his passport in a road trip piece called Untitled 1998 (On the Road With Jiew Jeaw Jieb
Sri and Moo), highlighting the contemporary mundane aspects of a subject moving from one
place to another. And Rinally Michael Naimark positions his gaze behind a stereoscopic device
exhibiting the role of media in the depiction of landscape and the touristic imaginary. These
artists represent space through a speciRic layer interrogating space and the way they
experience it. The way they represent space is comparable with the way authors of
travelogues depicted the places they visited. As artists they embark on a hermeneutic
investigation of a place. In The Lure of the Local, Lucy Lippard acknowledges the way outsider
artists, as well as, local artists represent places. For Lippard “Every landscape is a hermetic
narrative: Rinding a Ritting place for oneself in the world is Rinding a place for oneself in the
story” This story is composed of layers of mythologies, histories and ideologies that conform
identity and representation. In that sense, all place representations are in between the inside
and the outside a “virtual immersion that depend on lived experiences and topographical
intimacy” (Lippard, 1997, 33).
34
Another Tourist at the Falls
As many other tourists, my previous familiarity with Niagara Falls was due to the fact
that it is a well-‐known touristic landmark. While being on site, the compelling character of the
water current made me wonder how long this natural phenomenon has been intriguing other
travelers. My initial question inquires about the clear biological life cycles observed in a
natural environment like this, in contrast with the historical value conferred to the site. The
myth of an everlasting nature in combination with the renewability of water resources
formulated –unconsciously-‐ in identical and countless representations of the cataract, gave me
the impression of a place that hasn’t changed in time. There seems to be a paradoxical inertia
imprinted in the cataract representations, that only shift when it is depicted within different
techniques, angles, viewing apparatuses or modes of narration. Due to my visitor/traveler
status, I was inclined to search for pristine representations and local tourism history as two
topics. These topics could confront the tension between the homogeneity of representations
of the Rlow of water and the historical difference that one could Rind within these images in
time. In doing so, I ran into the Underwood and Underwood Stereoscopic tours, which
encouraged me in the search for sightseeing spots that examine the landscape changes as well
as the representational shifts.
I followed the map of this stereoscopic tour in search for the spots marked on it.
However, not surprisingly, the map did not match with the territory I was exploring now.
Buildings, trees, paths, rails, fences, highways, walls, bridges were either blocking the way to
the marked spots or the spots where missing. I found that areas that are supposed to match
the map were restricted or left in total oblivion; others were not suited for public access
anymore or couldn’t be recognized within the space layout today. In contrast, I found different
kinds of social practices related to leisure that seemed more engaging to observe such us
jogging, hiking, photographing, Rishing and reading. People use the site as a place to enjoy an
outdoor experience. My impression shifted from a scenery that seems timeless, to a designed
35
space full of signaling that provides visitors with a sense of safeness. The amount of
informational panels, paths, fences and other elements allocated on the site restrict as well as
allow the circulation of people. This makes visible the presence of government structures that
monitor and shepherd visitors.
Understanding all this as my personal perception of the landscape, I started to capture
with the cameras, images that exhibit the relationship between the public space and the
poeticized natural heritage. I contrasted the designed space with the romantic envisions found
in the textual representations previously researched in libraries and local archives. I exposed
the concept of danger, ennobled in travelogues as one used to advise visitors to move with
precaution through the paths along the river. I captured with the cameras the tamed
landscape, the commoditized beauty of the frame and the staged astonishing natural
phenomena.
My videos question the fantasy of travel as the image of the mundane immersed in
designed structures. There is no invitation to the site, but a depiction of the place that uses
audio in the form of the site’s soundscape as a core component of the artist’s voice. The sound
treatment exposes the preconceived notions of the subject when gazing at the landmark,
confronting the static image. Another Tourist at the Falls (as the proposed name for this set of
videos) exhibits nostalgia for unmet expectations. The silent voice of the author lets the space
speak, mumbling discrete social and historical references. Stereoscopy serves to show both
the historical charge of the site’s representations and to accentuate the satirical tone of the
tour. This project makes obvious that the stereoscopic technology is not used to invite the
spectator into immersive spectacular scenery, but to question the spectacle of the
representational space in contrast with the social practices and point of view of the visiting
artist.
Conclusion
Niagara Falls has been and will continue to be a place in which past and present
36
representations resonate. The visual references of the site are in a continuous dialogue
between previous and present depictions of the space. The uniqueness observed in early
travelogues corresponds to the remoteness of the site and the inaccessibility of transportation
routes at the time when these representations were recorded. Such transportation
constraints compel travelers to plan longer visits. With these longer periods on site, the
opportunity to become acquainted with the place and its inhabitants increases; creating a
higher level of intimacy, especially in comparison with the compressed experiences that
visitors have during their short walks around the park today. Early travelers’ elaborate
depictions allow readers and viewers to experience the same rich level of intimacy and
familiarity that these travelers had with the space. Furthermore, the technological limitations
of the reproduction and publication of these early documents becomes apparent through the
relatively small amount of narrations that I was able to unearth in writing this paper;
particularly, in comparison with the steady and endless Rlow of representations found on the
Internet today.
Contemporary representations of the Falls uploaded on social media websites have a
simultaneous, “real-‐time” characteristic, that when combined with geolocation, validate the
experience of the tourist on-‐site. The simultaneity and emplacement of these instantaneous
archives, conRirm each person’s experience through the copious amount of representations
uploaded online. These representations can be dismissive of the intimate tone of early
travelogues due to a temporal compression; the short duration of their visit and the rapid way
they publish their photographs and thoughts about the site.
My touristic point of view was expanded by the three years that I expended working on
the projects and in the space. My relationship with the site became more intimate than the
relationship that the common contemporary tourist has with Niagara Falls. Even though I do
not consider myself a tourist in the Falls anymore, it is still a foreign place for me. This
contradictory aspect of my experience is reRlected throughout Another Tourist at the Falls in a
37
manner that is intended to be both ironic and self-‐aware. I present a detached view of each
landmark and portray them as a subjective observation of the objects that compose the overall
landscape, without giving any information about them or the place in general. I do this
because I do not want to guide visitors through the space, but rather I want to depict speciRic
scenes of my visit for the viewer to become immersed in their own travel through my images.
My stereoscopic tour is a quiet contemplation of objects and practices that exhibit
nostalgia for the previous envisionings of the site found in early travelogues. The immersive
effect depicted in early stereoscopic tours and early travelogues is achieved with the three
dimensional trick, but most of all, with the sonic experience I reproduce for my audience. The
sound in the piece allows the spectator to experience the site as I perceive it. The audiovisual
treatment of the footage accentuates the relationship between representation and perception
analyzed throughout the research, creating a tension between my on-‐site and the viewer
experience of my narrative.
38
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