Summary of life trajectory and becoming aware of the chaos
Juan José Sánchez García
Yolanda Fernández-Barredo Sevilla
Images
Themes
Formats
Typology
Authors
Editors
Equipment
Direct View
With mechanic intervening
Projection
Reproduction
Graphisms
Instruments
Data Collection
Picture-Taking
Developing
Research
Enlargement
THE COLLECTION
Complements
Classification
Storege
Furniture
Other arts
Accesories
Documentation / Information
Books
Magazines
Cataloges
Manuscripts
Verbal Inform.
Internet
Other interests
Those that may airise in the future
The need to bring order out of chaos was specifically stated by our Director Carmen Pérez González when she paraphrased Lee Fontanella, when she presented the groundwork lecture ‘FBS FOUNDATION FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL FOOTPRINT OF STEREOSCOPIC PHOTOGRAPHY, AS SCIENCE AND ART’; this presentation was made at the INTERNATIONAL MEETINGS ON STEREOSCOPIC PHOTOGRAPHY, held in Bordeaux on 11, 12 and 13 May 2023, under the direction of Catherine Carposin Martin and with Chloé Bernard as Cultural Mediator at CLEM.
However, and despite the real chaos that has occurred over the more than 45 years of the formation of this collection (50 if we think of the architecture books, which started it all), the variations in the way the collection is understood and approaching its results have evolved to the point of comprehending that everything related to stereoscopic photography is related not only to Art but also to many, if not all, known branches of science.
The importance of preserving Historical Memory, in accordance with the intentions present in the very name of our ‘FBS FOUNDATION FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL FOOTPRINT OF STEREOSCOPIC PHOTOGRAPHY, AS A SCIENCE AND ART’, is implicit and must be contemplated both in our own histories and in those of others, because we are what we are because we have absorbed knowledge that others have worked on in a different way and in different historical contexts. All cultures have hundreds of centuries of both their own and shared history.
History is what it is and no matter how much we want to ignore the parts that are less pleasant, those facts are there and we cannot, we should not (according to the criteria of the Founders of this Foundation) put on a blindfold that prevents us from seeing what we do not like and what is outside the canons that are being established in this 21st century, because the canons are changing, but history is stubborn in showing us that it repeats itself until those who live it learn from their own mistakes and from the horrors that others lived before them.
As a consequence, our ‘FBS FOUNDATION FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL FOOTPRINT OF STEREOSCOPIC PHOTOGRAPHY, AS SCIENCE AND ART’, will work on projects that allow us to obtain a social return that involves the correlation and understanding of sensibilities, through the knowledge of History, fundamentally through bibliographies and photography, but with even more enthusiasm when that photography is stereoscopic and is related to all aspects of its science.
It could not be otherwise, the Foundation has its own history; microscopic, if we compare it with the meaning of everything behind the FBS Collection, but exciting for the Founders, as it has allowed them to meet magnificent, diverse people, with very different discourses, all associated with documents that in their own life trajectories are unquestionable, in terms of their historical background as objects and as elements that, from their origin, have followed singular paths, until they have come to form part of the collections that today we enjoy and have the pleasure of safeguarding and sharing with researchers whose aims are social and, occasionally, personal.
The idea and the final objective of the website of the ‘FBS FOUNDATION FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL TRACE OF STEREOSCOPIC PHOTOGRAPHY, AS SCIENCE AND ART’, will be to recognise its own history, to exhibit pieces in some of the sections of the ‘Collection’; to study the proposals of other people’s projects and develop our own, to inform with all possible transparency of the advances made in our organization, to catalogue each and every one of the elements that make up the collections and to work to preserve their historical footprint, and to see how they can help in the advancement towards the future.
The chaos we referred to at the beginning is related to:
- The space (container), the lack of space, where the collection is kept.
- The impossibility of combining a very intense professional life with the dedication that was necessary to be able to catalogue the items as they arrived in the collection.
- The evolution of the collectors themselves, through their initiative and learning, with the people who contributed to the construction of the collection, in both positive and negative ways.
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Various aspects of the Collection’s Library
The chaos, however, is more associated with the impossibility of accessing part of the collection, which is ‘filling up spaces’ inside a house/container, as Santiago Sáenz de Samaniego described in the article he dedicated to the Collection, then called Klumpcol, in the magazine BERCEO https://dialnet.unirioja.es/ejemplar/295362 , pp. 103 to 127, back in 2011. During the stage (between 2008 and 2015) in which we were already becoming aware that the volume and variety of the collection were growing out of our control.
And it was at the end of that stage, of becoming aware, when we began to publicly expose what the collection was, through the papers and communiqués we gave at the biennial CONFERENCES ON RESEARCH IN THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY, held in Zaragoza and organised by the FERNANDO EL CATÓLICO INSTITUTE and the DIPUTATION OF ZARAGOZA, under the direction of José Antonio Hernández Latas, in 2015 and 2019.
It was Hernández Latas’ drive that prompted us to carry out an initial organisation exercise on the parts that made up our collection’s holdings. In fact, it was this reflection that led us to the next vital stage, that of setting our objective on the usefulness and preservation of the collection as a whole.
Also through Jose Antonio Hernández Latas and by the invitation of Victor M. Esteves Flores and Teresa Mendes Flores, we have collaborated in two of the symposia organised through the UNIVERSIDAD LUSÓFONA DE HUMANIDADES E TECNOLOGIAS. SOCIEDADE NACIONAL DE BELAS ARTES:
- 28 a 30/June/2018 3rd. INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE STEREO & IMMERSIVE MEDIA – PHOTOGRAPHY, SOUND AND CINEMA RESEARCH.
- 11-12 & 18-19/June 2021. S&MEDIA. STEREOSCOPIC 3D AND IMMERSIVE MEDIA. Online Edition (due to the pandemic).
In the first one we had the pleasure of meeting our Director, Carmen, who joined the FBS Foundation project from the University of Wuppertal (Germany), in the last course of the year 2021, with the study of the German part of the FBS Collection.
This is a brief summary of the life trajectory of the interventions that have allowed us to make the first approaches to the fifty-year-old collection with which we have lived for years, even before Juanjo’s and my lives joined under the same roof (12/July/1985), the same one we share with the Collection, which is now demanding its own space.
Collection over time
1978 - 1985
The emotion of stereoscopy
.
7 years of approaching photographic varieties
1985 - 1996
The universe of suppliers
and collectors
11 years of immersion in the world of stereoscopy.
1996 - 2008
Immersion in stereoscopic
.
12 years of searching for new knowledge and techniques
2008-2015
The volume and
variety overwhelms us
7 years to become aware of what we were doing
2015-2020
Utility and preservation of the
of the entire collection
5 years for decision on the final object of the collection
2020-2023
Viability of the Foundation and
formation of multidisciplinary teams
3 years so that the final object of the collection can be fulfilled.
An approach to the collection
Object of the month
VIEW-MASTER
In January, a month of kings and toys, the FBS Collection presents elements of the VIEW-MASTER family, including the S-I Series projectors. The system was created by Wilhelm Gruber, a German inventor, in collaboration with Harold Graves, developing discs with 7 patented stereoscopic pairs. Manufactured by Sawyer’s Inc, they were first marketed in 1947.