Curator Dr Emily Burns and Exhibition Assistant Tegan Rush explore the world of stereoscopy, in many ways an early precursor to virtual reality as we know it today.

Ever wondered how Victorians entertained themselves before TV and film?

In the mid-nineteenth century, advancements in technology led to a new invention, stereoscopy, which enabled users to see flat images as if they were three-dimensional. Soon, this affordable pastime became all the rage, allowing Victorians the thrilling opportunity to encounter famous people, rare art and far-away places they may not have seen otherwise.

Watts Gallery’s new exhibition Victorian Virtual Reality allows visitors to immerse themselves in the interactive world of stereoscopy. The show explores this nineteenth-century craze through over 150 original photographs from the Brian May Archive of Stereoscopy and select items from the Watts Gallery Trust collection. Visitors can use modern handheld and digital viewers to see historic images in 3D, as the Victorians would have experienced them.

Like present-day virtual reality technologies, stereoscopy blends science and art to entertain. Stereoscopic images are made up of two photographs taken from slightly different angles. When mounted side-by-side and experienced through a viewer they appear in 3D. Whilst this fascinated the Victorians, the simple trick of the eyes is still thrilling today. The artform had a resurgence of popularity in the mid-twentieth century, with new formats such as the iconic red View-Master. During this time the young Sir Brian May (1947-), later the lead guitarist for Queen, began his passion for stereoscopy. In 1959, he discovered a stereoscopic photograph in a Weetabix cereal packet. Curious, he sent off for a 3D-viewer and embarked upon a lifelong passion for this photographic phenomenon. Sir Brian May’s original hippo card and viewer is featured in the show.

Sir Brian May’s collection numbers over 200,000 objects relating to stereoscopy, and the exhibition at Watts Gallery is the largest display of the collection to date. Victorian Virtual Reality showcases highlights from the collection’s holdings of nineteenth-century photographic material. The exhibition’s five key themes: Victorian Life, Art, Portraiture, Fantasy and Travel, reflect some of the interests and fascinations of Victorians.

Idealised, staged scenes were popular as stereoscopy was designed to entertain and provide distraction from day-to-day life. Victorian Life features scenes of rural and cosmopolitan life; many are romanticised with few photographs commenting on contemporary concerns such as poverty.

During the nineteenth century, access to art was mainly limited to the elite. Stereoscopy offered an affordable way for more people to enjoy three-dimensional representations of art and artistic spaces. Images in this section include photographs of sculpture and sculptors at work, human recreations of famous paintings, painting copyists set up in a gallery and a rare image of a female artist’s studio.

Stereoscopic portraiture had wide appeal and enabled Victorians to ‘virtually’ meet celebrity sitters in 3D. Famous faces such as Queen Victoria and Charles Dickens were popular, as were images of recognisable figures such as the Waterloo veterans. Amateur snapshots also feature in this section, such as a series of informal family portraits taken by the artist Henry Holiday (Rob Dickins collection, Watts Gallery Trust).

During the Victorian era travel photography increased as developments in transport systems enabled a select few to travel the world more freely. Photographers took stereoscopic photographs of popular landmarks, enabling others to ‘virtually’ transport themselves to new destinations. The selection of images in this section reflect the places George Frederic and Mary Watts visited, such as Egypt.

Stereoscopy also revealed a light-hearted and playful side of Victorians. The final thematic section of the show, Fantasy, reveals how photographers would use fancy dress, staging and props to create imaginative scenes to delight and intrigue. Tableaux of skeletons and devils, known as Diableries, and ghostly apparitions show a darker side of Victorian humour.