Science And Art Combined To Create These Fantastic Optical Illusions

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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=17&v=szjgcZwGYOA]

They’re called “reverspectives” and they contradict the entire history of how art has traditionally been seen. Rather than looking at a piece from one direction, straight ahead, this piece is built so that you get a different picture as you walk in front of it. It can be a bit hard to explain but seeing is believing so taking a look at the above video should make it clear.

And here are some stills of each viewpoint so you can really see what you’re looking at. Basically, instead of trying to create the effect of a 3-D object on a 2-D space, twin sisters Sepideh and Saediah Omidghaemi along with classmate Chido Munjanganja have created three dimensional art by painting two dimensional images on three dimensional objects. The effect is very cool.

 

Sepideh is an Illinois College of Optometry student and she got the idea for Reverspective from studying how the eye actually works. Her love of art made the next steps possible.

In Reverspectives, the painted surface closest to the viewer is actually perceived as being the furthest away. The brain, trying to make sense of these mixed visual signals, perceives movement in the image as viewers move their positions relative to the painting. Scientists are still debating why this happens.

Listen to the artists talk about the process and inspiration for the project below.