“Dynacube” is a new line of 3D puzzles featuring my optical art. It isn’t just a puzzle but also a living piece of art. This 3D game is available in 4 distinct styles from Recent Toys: http://www.recenttoys.com/project/dynacube/
Dynacube is a fun game for kids and adults alike to practice their logical thinking and motor skills.
Display with 4 distinct styles of Dynacubes
Because of his unique ginger and black coloring, this slim cat walking in the desert looks like to have a hole through his body!
Kinechromatics (patent pending) is a method of my invention for animating static images through retinal persistence and controlled interactions between additive and subtractive color systems. It produces apparent motion by sequential color filtering across layered chromatic structures, rather than relying on conventional frame-by-frame animation.
The static image above is made of 3 layers having each a different subtractive primary color (magenta, yellow, or cyan) blended in ‘multiply mode’…
What happens if we alternately overlay this image with transparent colored acetate sheets, each carrying an additive primary color (red, green, and blue)?
Kinechromatics: red filter
When viewed through a red acetate sheet, the magenta and yellow components are largely absorbed, while the cyan layer remains visible, appearing black.
Kinechromatics: green filter
Through a green acetate sheet, the cyan and yellow components are suppressed, revealing the magenta layer in black.
Kinechromatics: blue filter
Through a blue acetate sheet, the magenta and cyan components are reduced, allowing the yellow layer to emerge but appear black due to its lack of transmission in the blue range.
The animated GIF below produces a continuous motion effect using only four elements: a static base image and three full-color layers blended in multiply mode.
Colored light can also replace acetate filters, creating a seamless optical animation. Stroboscopic illumination in primary colors has the added effect of merging perceptually into white light, making the transitions visually smooth. This approach can be particularly effective in museum or gallery installations, offering a direct demonstration of how color interaction is processed by human vision. The setup consists of a static image containing the Kinechromatics pattern, illuminated sequentially by red, green, and blue projection, as shown in the animation below.
For inquiries about exhibition or collaboration, feel free to contact me.
A second example, a simple animated dancing skeleton, demonstrates the same principle:
See also:
This intriguing image is taken from my book “Curiopticals“. Look at Frankenstein from a certain distance – approximately 2-3 meters, or 7-8 feet – and you will see what he is dreaming about. This type of illusion is known as a cryptic or hybrid optical illusion, and is produced by merging two subjects with different resolutions. The result is that one subject is hidden or suggested in the ‘host’ image. Continue Reading
As you surely know, the “BEST ILLUSION OF THE YEAR CONTEST” is a yearly competition under the patronage of Scientific American, organized by the Neural Correlate Company (New York, USA).
Müller-Lyer’s illusion proves that a segment can visually appear longer or shorter depending on the sense of the arrow heads at its ends. In what consists my variant? As shown in the animation, the red dot in the middle of the line is equidistant from the other two red dots, although the ends of the line visually appear to alternately stretch and shrink like a rubber band!
The radial version of the illusion is even more impressive:
The perceptual increasing and decreasing of the segments occurs in a very short time. Thus, I suppose it is more a physiological phenomenon, rather than a psychological bias. Our attention seems to be attracted by the receptive field WITHIN the V-shaped arrow heads, causing an illusory inward or outward shift of the ends of the line.
The very first illusion is to believe that there is one, unique world of perception. The mind and the world we experience are inseparable, as it is the mind that makes the world meaningful. Our mind IS our world. Despite the fact that our mental construct of what is perceived is distinct from the objective reality, our mind accepts it as real.
Every organism, man as well as animal, lives in its own subjective spatiotemporal world that semiotic philosophers call ‘Umwelt’ (from the German Umwelt, ‘surrounding world’, or ‘life-world’). According to the biologist Jakob J. von Uexküll, organisms and their life-world shape each other in a functional loop (see fig. below): interactions between the subject and the outer world, mediated through the sense and effect organs, determine the world framework of the subject. Thus, a particular stimulus which has a perceptive cue or meaning to the subject induces always a purposeful reaction.
“Bathers”, incredible etchings by Swedish artist Anders Zorn (1860-1920). Zorn pursued light as the guiding principle of his art. The expression of light on the human form and his beloved homeland was the foundation of his work, and drove him with an intensity visible in the details from his multiple etchings.
Magnifiques eau-fortes (dessins au trait) par l’artiste suédois Anders Zorn.
This is one of my earliest self-moving op art works (2003). Have a look at the static image above, don’t you have the feeling that the sets of lenticular shapes seem to expand?
This piece is accessible in various formats, including prints, posters, and t-shirts, through my art gallery shop.
Continue ReadingI am working on a new two-dimensional variant of the Müller-Lyer illusion… You may be surprised to know that the Müller-Lyer illusion isn’t only linear: it involves plane geometry too! In fig. A shown below, the ends of the blue and red collinear segments, arranged in a radial fashion around a central point, delimit two perfectly concentric circles. However, for most observers, they seem instead to define a large ovoid that circumscribes another one, slightly eccentric (Fig. B). This comes from the fact that the red segments seem to stretch towards the lower part of the figure, while the blue segments seem to stretch towards the upper part of the same. As you can see, in this variant comes also into play the “neon color spreading” effect. In fact, a bluish inner oval-like shape appears within the black arrow heads (Fig. A), though the background is uniformly white.
The human body plays host to trillions of microorganisms. So many, in fact, that they outnumber our cells 10 to 1! Fortunately many of these microbes are vital to human health.
Using a cell-culture dish filled with a nutrient broth commonly used in labs, Tasha Sturm, a microbiology tech at Cabrillo College in California, gently stamped her 8-year-old’s hand on the plate. She then incubated the petri dish at body temperature and 2 days later, the bacteria and yeast that were transferred to the dish had built a blooming colony (see featured photo above). Continue Reading
