FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Design

This Animated Sculpture is a Tangible Optical Illusion

This would look great on any coffee table.
GIF by the author, via.

Three students at the Köln International School of Design in Germany have a developed a new kind of animated sculpture that produces a controlled 3D zoetrope optical illusion. Flux displays a tangible animation that tests the eye’s perception of space and depth without using any sort of projector or camera. The 3D-printed hemisphere that makes up the base of the sculpture was constructed according to the Fibonacci sequence, the same number progression used in these distorted celebrity portraits.  The Fibonacci sequence starts with 0, then 1, and its following entries are all determined by adding its last two numbers. This sequence determines the rotation speed of the sculpture’s animated sphere and the light frequency by which it is illuminated.

Advertisement

The designers write in the project’s description that "the Fibonacci sequence thereby isn't anything that only appeals to mathematicians, but is of great significance in the process of understanding aesthetics and harmony as a whole—as far as an impression can be expressed as visual perception.”

Check out shots of the sculpture in action below:

For more information on Flux, click here.

Related:

Takeshi Murata Made An Animated Sculpture That Melts Into Itself

Nature's Golden Ratio Inspires 3D-Printed Zoetropes

Gregory Barsamian Turns Dream Reality Into Eerie Animated Sculptures