Afterimage - Mind Frame II   ( Watch Video  )

‘Afterimage - Mind Frame II’ is a visual installation where the audience discovers and recreates images in empty picture frames. Physical, mental, and emotional interactions all come together in this piece. Audiences see an abstract moving image composed of tiny white blocks projected in a picture frame placed at eye level in a gallery setting. After the array of blocks stops moving, an afterimage of a familiar image is revealed in the otherwise blank frame.

The array of tiny, moving blocks forms a very vague representation of the original image and the afterimage it creates is not very clear. But regardless, the audience perceives a well-defined impression of the subject. This happens because the afterimage subconsciously invokes the original image from their memory, neurologically combining it with the afterimage from the eye. Therefore audiences don’t see just the afterimage, but a combination of the afterimage and the original image from their own memory which fills in the details more fully as they remember the original image. It’s a surprising experience, and created entirely in the mind from memories and a grid of glowing blocks!

As described above, the most important characteristic of the projects is that they need an audience to be completed. These projects encourage the audience to become involved deeply as they are only able to achieve completion when the audience and the piece are performing together. With “Afterimage – Mind Frame II” people will experience a unique and different way of interaction.

User Scenario

The visitor is invited to hang any of three to five frames on a wall. In each, they see an abstract moving image composed of white squires. After the array of squires stop moving, an afterimage of a familiar painting is revealed in the otherwise blank frame. And with focusing on the middle of the frame while movie is playing, stopping continuously, they will experience everything.

Implementation

Processing, Codeless communication, Projection, Picture frames.

Principle

Vision is one of the most amazing abilities we have. It’s also most directly related to the perception of art. Light is reflected off of objects…and enters our eyes. This visual information ( passes through the eye, through the optic nerve ) is carried to the brain where perception actually takes place. We see from eye and brain together, not just our eyes.

However there are times when the visual stimuli that is received causes the brain to make the wrong interpretation. That is called an optical illusion. This project involves two particular types.