Toy Story

In Consumed: The Vladmaster: How a 3-D children’s toy found a new life as an indie art product.

Media forms come and go, and often this seems like a zero-sum game. New forms of communication pop up and others promptly become obsolete as a result: the killer app leaves a dead-media trail. When a man named William Gruber created what became known as the View-Master in 1938, he had high hopes for it as a media format. After all, it took a place among the wonders of the 1939 World’s Fair. “His original intention for the stereoscopic viewing device — he didn’t even like the name View-Master — is that it would be an educational medium,” says Annie Dubinsky, assistant director of the 3D Center of Art and Photography. Instead, it became a wildly popular children’s toy.

The View-Master is still around and is not radically different from what it was decades ago. Each View-Master reel contains 14 pictures that, to the viewer, appear as seven stereoscopic images. Hold the plastic device up to your eyes and advance through the images by pressing a lever on the side. Many would see this decidedly low-tech artifact as nothing more than a mildly nostalgia-inducing bit of consumer kitsch. But a few years ago, a 29-year-old Portland artist who calls herself Vladimir saw something different: a potentially potent media form….

Continue reading by way of this NYT Magazine link, or this Boston Globe link.

Additional links: Vladmaster; 3D Center of Art and Photography; Toy Hall of Fame View-Master entry.