OP ART INTRO

​Optical Illusion Unit

Poll

Are the circles moving?

• Yes

• No

Raise your hand...

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What do you see?

Raise your hand...

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What do you see?

While there are really only black blocks and white spaces in the grid, the high contrast black and white areas fool the eyes into perceiving a gray circle at each intersection.

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The Hermann Grid Illusion

In the Hermann Grid, the intersection that you are looking directly at falls onto the fovea, which has very little lateral inhibition due to the small receptive field and high concentration of photoreceptors.

Lateral inhibition enables the brain to manage environmental input and avoid information overload.

The Hermann Grid Illusion

In the area within the green circle, the dark and light areas are balanced, so no gain adjustment is needed, and we see this area as white.

At the peripheral intersections (purple circle), most of the receptive field is flooded with white light, causing strong lateral inhibition which results in reduced gain and an area that appears gray.

The Hermann Grid Illusion

Poll

Are the horizontal lines sloping or straight?

• Sloping

• Straight

​Raise your hand...

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What do you see?

There is a disconnect between what the eye sees and how the brain interprets it. The brain makes the best guess based on prior knowledge and wrongly fills in some missing information to give context to the visual information and form an image. 

During an optical illusion, the brain interprets the image, giving you a different perception from what is in front of you.

Also known as visual percepts, optical illusions refer to how your brain wrongly interprets what you see. Visual percepts occur when the images you perceive are different from the objective reality. 

What are they and how do they work?

Optical Illusions "Op Art"

Poll

What Animal do you see?

• Rabbit

• Duck

​Homage to the square paintings (1930s). Originated from Germany, had Op Art Tendencies

Josef Albers

Hungarian-born painter and graphic artist Victor Vasarely was experimenting with various visual tricks and moved to painting, creating the geometric abstract pictures for which he is famous for.

Victor Vasarely

In the 1960s she began to develop her distinctive style of black-and-white optical art.

Bridget Riley

In 1965 an exhibition called The Responsive Eye, created by William C. Seitz, was held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. A dizzying assembly of approximately 125 abstract works composed of geometric shapes, complex patterns, undulating lines, and vivid colors.

MOMA Exhibition

Although the Op Art style became highly fashionable during the second half of the 1960s, it declined rapidly thereafter as a serious art form, despite periodic minor revivals.

Open Ended

Respond and state 2 things you learned about OP Art From the presentation.