Cool 3D art makes great use of perspective

 Posted by on 18 April 2009  Modern Life, Photography
Apr 182009
 

icefall

Blog reader Stumpy sends along an email with some cool three-dimensional street art. She says that if I don’t post it, she’ll still be a fan — but why wouldn’t I post it?! This stuff is great!!

It’s the work of artist Edgar Mueller, whose website you can find at Metanamorph.com. The piece above was drawn on a pier in Ireland. Check out the video:

He’s also done previous work in Germany and Moose Jaw (!).

These art pieces are not just strictly designed for pedestrian viewing (though they are — you have to stop and look from one specific point, or the illusion falls apart). I like that Mueller also encourages passers-by to interact with the art. Pretend that they are actually immersed in the illusion, while others take pictures. That’s great.

Because he uses paint, it’s much more resilient than chalk-based street art, but I wonder if a sealant could be used to make it semi-permanent. There are plenty of places that have wall murals as part of their public art, or to decorate their civic spaces. But I love the interactivity of this stuff, and I’d like to see it used more widely.

More pictures after the jump

crevasse

lavapit

But look at the waterfall he painted in Moose Jaw, and how the illusion falls apart if you look at it from the wrong angle:

brother-and-sister

standing-on-the-edge

audience

Still a neat trick, though!

Thanks, Stumpy!!

Grant Hamilton

  • MPot

    That’s awesome. Wish I had a talent! sniffle.

  • Determinator

    Nice. Should get him out to Manitoba and let him go nuts on the city, (with something to keep it permanent).

    • http://www.absurdintellectual.com/ Grant Hamilton

      I agree — they don’t have to be massive pieces like this either. Imagine a series of smaller trompe-l’oeil pieces scattered along a sidewalk. Maybe they tell a story in five parts?

      Worried about weathering? Some of those wall murals last for decades. I’m sure there are paint formulations that would last just as long.

      Think people will wear it down by walking on it all day? Why not geometric patterns in brick? I’m thinking perhaps of a series of cobblestones that look like a floating cube, say, from a specific angle, and just look like a cool pattern from other angles.

      Want to do something better, but have it last longer? Put in on the floor of a mall — that keeps it away from the weather, and it should be easier to find a plexiglass-like substance to protect it from shoes.

      Should be a no-brainer.

  • colin corneau

    Maybe Marlow Kirton should hire YOU to help our dowtown!

    I’d happily pay for intriguing art over an endless stream of consultants.

  • http://rusirius.wordpress.com/ Harrison Bergeron

    I noticed that in the movie the people tended to stay close to the outer edges, although it could have been because the paint was damp, or they didn’t want to interfer with the photo effects of others, or simply because someone told them to walk around it. This despite the fact the perspective, other than from the front wouldn’t have carried the same effect.

    But it makes me wonder if there’s a measurable psychological factor at work that could be transfered to guiding people into a preferred paths of transit without signs.

    • http://www.absurdintellectual.com/ Grant Hamilton

      Those psychological factors really excite me, actually. It’s a hugely overlooked factor in urban design that I’ve been doing a lot of reading about, in the past year or so. Simple design changes can really influence how people interact with something. A classic example are the flashing lights at pedestrian crosswalks. Normally, you touch a button to activate them. Most people don’t pay any attention to which side of the post the button is on — but if you design the post so that pedestrians activating the lights tend to be facing towards oncoming traffic, you can add to pedestrian safety.

      Specifically regarding paint on pavement, I suspect there’s been research in that area before — think of paw print pathways at the zoo, for example — but I’m not aware of any. I should look into that. It’d be great to have public art that also influenced people to use crosswalks, say.

      If you’re interested in that sort of subtle behaviour modification, check out a book called “Nudge.” I haven’t read it — yet — but I’ve read a lot about it, and about the concepts. Neat stuff.

  • Stumpy

    Invisible boundaries are definitely interesting. I remember the theater by the Shoppers Mall used to have a piece of carpet that was in an inverse D shape of some sort. People would crowd around the arc of the D even though there was no reason why people had to be in that particular shape, they just followed the shape of the carpet.

    • http://www.absurdintellectual.com/ Grant Hamilton

      I remember that!!

      You can see this in places that have lots of doors side-by-side, too. Even though all of the doors may be unlocked, people in a crowd will stream towards the two or three that are already being held open. You can skip the line by heading to any of the other doors and letting yourself out, but watch for the crowd of people that follows you.