Light Trap for Bruce Nauman: The holographic image and expanded 3D imaging

Over the last two decades media scholars have identified a shift in our understanding of the nature of seeing and images that has been aligned with the development of the operational image. Thomas Elsaesser has exposed the significance of expanded 3D technologies in the transformation of images from representations to be looked at to prompts for action. However, the status of the holographic image in this genealogy has yet to be fully explored. This article investigates the holographic image by focussing on the optical holograms made by artist Bruce Nauman in 1968-69. It offers original visual analyses of Nauman’s holograms and archival research into their reception, linking its findings to theories of expanded 3D imaging developed through Elsaesser, Crary and de Bruyn. This approach advances our understanding of the significance of intangible three-dimensional imaging in the conceptualization of images as agents of remote action. The article suggests that the holographic image is aligned with the operational image via its displacement of the body from the apparatus of the image. It also maintains that the holographic image solicited a conceptualization of images as spatial territories beyond the pictorial frame in which bodies might be situated. Nauman’s holograms expose how the holographic imaginary anticipated certain aspects of the operational image.