Stereo Cards from For Your Eyes Only (2025)
My generation has had the internet in our pockets since middle school. Online media
taught us how to behave in real life, from selfies to sex. As a gay man, I’ve performed in
intimate images based on a sexualized self-image that I learned from internet porn. I even
learned which locations to self-objectify in. I’m not the only one. Antique stereo-view
cards were manufactured as marketable novelty items. Sometimes even hand-colored,
their 3D images supposedly gave viewers a chance to see the whole world with their own
two eyes. Sounds familiar. Naturally, they showed porn, too. Nothing gay. Nudes and
stereo cards: low-brow, gimmicky, and collectable. I quit watching porn. Backed out of
social media. Still, every image here comes from a moment where I felt the shameful and
addictive urge to pick up my phone that was engineered for me all along.
taught us how to behave in real life, from selfies to sex. As a gay man, I’ve performed in
intimate images based on a sexualized self-image that I learned from internet porn. I even
learned which locations to self-objectify in. I’m not the only one. Antique stereo-view
cards were manufactured as marketable novelty items. Sometimes even hand-colored,
their 3D images supposedly gave viewers a chance to see the whole world with their own
two eyes. Sounds familiar. Naturally, they showed porn, too. Nothing gay. Nudes and
stereo cards: low-brow, gimmicky, and collectable. I quit watching porn. Backed out of
social media. Still, every image here comes from a moment where I felt the shameful and
addictive urge to pick up my phone that was engineered for me all along.
This body of work is currently on exhibition in the Handwerker Gallery at Ithaca College.
