Surface Explorations: 3D Moving Images as Cartographies of Time

Abstract

In this essay, I examine how the trope of navigation in 3D moving images can work towards an intimate and haptic encounter with other times and other places. The particular navigational construction of space in time in 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 Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010) as a theoretical object, the main question addressed is how the creative exploration of new visualization technologies—from rock painting and 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. Keywords: Surface, cartography; navigation; 3D, animation; haptic visuality