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An Illusion

a simple but impactful conceptural work that uses a visual illusion

An Illusion

About the concept and my process

How do you make an imact through a single poster? For a single poster, is it possible to capture a viewer's attention for more than 5 seconds?

This is a very visually simple piece that I am proud of because of the concept and meaning behind it. While this work may seem different from my other projects at first glance, it is actually still interactive, just the “interaction” occurs in the mind of the viewer. One of my favorite undergraduate courses so far was a physics course called “Physics of Vision” where we learned about optics, the mechanisms of the eye, and organic neural networks. One phenomena we studied is called after-image. This is essentially the phenomenon that occurs when you stare at something very bright for a while (could be illuminated or just high in saturation), and shift your gaze and see spots or inverted colors of whatever it is you were staring at. I distinctly remember being in the bright warm sun outside and then quickly rushing indoors where everything was extremely dark and green.

To show the viewer this phenomenon, try staring at the blue circle below for ~15 seconds and then quickly shift your gaze to the black dot and stare there for ~10 seconds. (insert blue circle image below)

You should be able to see the after image of the blue circle; it should look like a ghost orange shade. (insert blue orange circle image below)

Since this process is pretty involved and makes the viewer interact for a solid 30 seconds, I decided to somehow leave the viewer with a memorable takeaway. I am very passionate about the issue of global warming and the impact of our everyday actions. I have made a few social awareness posters and art pieces in the past, but from those I realized that people don’t take the time to engage or quantify these problems in their own terms. By combining this illusion with a meaningful message that hopefully does put things into perspective, I wanted to literally depict how our world is slowly fading away before our eyes. I chose to design the iceberg in colors so that that the after-image illusion is the actual color of an ice berg with blue and white hues, while the real image is a dark firey orange reality of what our world could fade into.