For my final major project as part of college. I want to look into the idea of illusions. I have previously looked at stereoscopic photography, which I believe to be an illusion because you believe the scene to be 3-Dimensional when in reality it is a 2D flat image. So I want to explore a range of illusions other than stereoscopic imagery.

I have been fascinated by various illusions when I was a child. I had a couple of 3D books, such as ones with dinosaurs, or ones showing the planets and space. I had also watched ‘Spy Kids 3D’, which I absolutely loved, sitting in front of the television, reaching out to try and grab the objects coming out of the screen. I was also given a ‘German Hypnotizer’ (well what I think it was called) by my Grandmother, which was a flat disk that you spun round to create weird patterns on its shiny surface. In my teenage years I came across websites that displayed various illusions that distorted your natural viewing after staring at a spinning screen for a minute, which I absolutely love and I was fascinated by.

 

I will use various sources to find illusions and inspiration to create my own images, such as the Internet, magazines, books, and going to exhibitions. I am going to deeply analyze a few selected artists and works, looking into what the illusion actually is, how the work is actually created, and why the work was created. I will also go into the history of illusions; I will look deep into the history all up to modern times. I am going to look over a range of aspects in history such as notable people, technology, art movements, photographic works, art works, and other various illusions. 

 

Once I have completed my research by doing my critiques and timeline, I will then review all of the work that I have been analyzing, and select key areas of that work which I am interested in. I will then explain why I am interested in those key areas, and explain how I will implement those ideas into my own work.

 

A series of shoots will then be completed in response to my previous research that will be developed throughout each shoot. Every time I complete a shoot, I will analyze the images taken, and then I will find the improvements that are necessary for the next shoot. Hopefully these shoots will develop over time, so the images are a greater quality, and I believe they relate more to the idea of illusions.

 

At the end of the project I hope to have a range of images that show all the various illusions that I have been able to create, I want different ways of viewing the images so people can interact with my work, and I would hope that people would be able to see the illusions I have created and kind of understand them, but I want there to be a sense of wonder to how they are created.