Bird Wrap Anamorphosis

Bird Wrap Anamorphosis

The goal of this piece is to intrigue the user to consider the way they usually perceive a mirror.  A mirror is usually thought of as a way to see yourself, to show yourself what is on you and behind you.  This piece, in contrast takes something that is not "normal" in the real world and makes it look "normal" in the mirror.  We are used to fun house mirrors making reality strange, but not the other way around. 

Bird Wrap Anamorphosis was made by stretching a 3D model of a bird along a circular path then 3D printing the stretched model.  When the model is placed in front of a cylindrical mirror of the right radius the bird appears “normal” in the mirror in comparison the shape of the bird in real life. 

When I displayed the piece I set it on a table with three different radii of cylindrical mirrors allowing the user to test out different placements and radii of mirrors to better understand how the “normal” illusion was taking place.  This was my attempt to make the exhibit slightly more interactive, in a future iteration, however, I would definitely want to have people interact more with the piece.  I think this interaction could go in two directions.  One option would be to have several more morphed models for the user to test out with the cylindrical mirrors.  Alternatively I could make one much larger piece that would allow users to see themselves more in scale with the morphed piece to better understand how the curved mirror made their body look versus how it made the stretched bird look.  

Pseudoscope

I’ve mainly described my anamorphosis mirror, but for this project I also tested out a design for a sort of pseudoscope that was supposed to change your depth perception.  I became frustrated with the design because of my tendency to become dizzy and disoriented easily, but it was an interesting experiment in redirecting perception. I don't think it worked perfectly, but it was interesting to consider how switching your eyes would effect the way you perceived the world.  The brain is wired hard to recognize the way you perceive things.  

Other Ideas

I had several other ideas to pursue that were never terribly fleshed out, but are worth mentioning.  One idea was inspired by John Edmark’s mirror that surrounds the face.  I wanted to build a mirror that surrounds your face and allows you to see yourself from many different angles as you’re looking into the world.  This idea was also bulding on a discovery from my pseudoscope.  Once I realized that the pseudoscope wasn't really doing what it was supposed to for me I realized that it was incredibly frustrating to never be able to make eye contact with yourself as you look in a mirror.  When I had two sides of mirror on either side of my face I would look over to one, but would only see my reflection from the other where my eyes were looking the other direction.   This also led me to consider making sunglasses that have mirror on both sides so you see your own eyes as your talking to someone else and the other person looks at their own reflection as they’re talking to you.  Sunglasses already do this on some level, but a mirror would accentuate this narcissistic behavior. 

Most of my other ideas last week involved building clothing pieces that allowed you to have a different perceptions of the world.  One of those idea was very similar to what clementine build last week.  I was planning on making a shoulder strap that extended out into an upward facing mirror that would let you walk around inverting the ceiling and floor.  Another idea was to make mirrored shoes or mirrored thigh pieces on pants that would invert your world with each step. 

I also considered making a mirrored mask like this mirrored costume that would change the way you would communicate with someone. 

Thinking back, a lot of the ideas I didn’t end up pursuing involved using mirrors to change the way people interacted with each other or interacted with their environment.  I think I chose the anamorphosis idea because it demonstrated a phenomenon with a curved mirror, but I think I am ultimately most interested in human interactions than visual phenomena.  Maybe I can find a way to link science and interactions to strengthen an exhibit.  I am interested in exploring the social experiments at the Exploratorium a bit more to see what types of interactions make people more conscious of their presence in the world.