Stereoscopic Logic
Understood architecturally, the Beijing Olympic Games most fully realized an aesthetic accomplishment of stereoscopic logic in the ludic context. No distinction was recognized between real and virtual spaces in the process, which we witnessed most acutely during the Opening Ceremonies, one of the most watched television broadcasts in human history. Consider attempts to alter weather patterns and ensure optimal studio conditions for the television production, or the substitution of a pretty muted girl for a chubby one with a beautiful voice, or the digitally-created fireworks accompanying those bursting in the real of Beijing's thick evening skies. This stereoscopic logic, which destroys all Euclidean conceptions of space and time, is but the most visible evidence that Beijing 2008 constitutes the Last Olympics, a signal at the end of sporting modernity and a punctuation mark to more than a century of athletic progress.
August 28th, 2009
[...] have noted that the Beijing Olympic Games, and in particular the Opening Ceremonies, most fully realized a stereoscopic aesthetic with no distinction recognized between real and virtual…. But it also bears mention that the specific example of the fireworks which punctuated the lighting [...]
March 9th, 2010
[...] of the lessons we learned from the 2008 Summer Olympic Games and its Opening Ceremonies was precisely such an indistinction between actual and synthetic spaces, most notably manifest in the fireworks display that exploded both in gunpowdered form at Beijing [...]