large scale art & single point perspective

Cafe Society
1

I have no idea what to call this, but I remember several years ago the Internet was all abuzz with amazing photos of lines painted on the outsides of buildings & streets, and in offices & hallways which when viewed from a particular vantage point, all seemed to connect and become some sort of giant piece of art.

A half hour of google image searching turned up nothing, but perhaps I don’t know what to call this kind of art and therefore I’m not using the right search terms.

Anybody remember these?

2

This is one variety of Anamorphic Art, and it’s a lot older than your post might suggest.

http://www.mcbridegallery.com/anamorphic.html

3

Are you talking about 3-D Sidewalk Art?

4

I don’t know what it’s called, either.

5

None of those pictures are precisely what I was thinking about, although they are impressive.

Searching on “Anamorphic Art” got me closer:

Anamorphic Illusion Car Park, and this crazy spiral square thing are better examples of what I am referring to. The object sort of leaps out at you and/or appears to be suspended in mid-air when viewed from the goldilocks point.

I seem to recall some artist having painted lines all over several city blocks that only came together when viewed from a certain street corner. I am still searching for that one.

6

I see we both found the car park :smiley:

7

These things look cool when photographed from the correct angle but I wonder if they are as impressive when viewed (from the correct angle) in person, what with depth perception coming into play.

8

If you read the article at the first link . . .

. . . then follow the hyperlink to Penrose Triangle, you’ll see this public art sculpture. Is that the sort of thing you were thinking of?

9

Felice Varinidoes a lot of this kind of stuff outdoors.

10

Yes that is exactly what I had in mind. And the triangle sculpture comes in a close second.

I’m amazed that the owners of those fabulous old buildings would allow somebody to paint dark blue lines all over them just for an optical illusion.

13

I’m suprised someone like Disney hasn’t taken advantage of this and used it in some of it’s line queues for popular attrations where thousands of people pass through the same perspective point each day.

14

Yes, especially since they make a game of having people look for Hidden Mickeys.

Wow. I’m glad I got to see those.

15

Some Examples of anamorphic paintings

16

Thanks for this thread. I like seeing these fantastic works. I’m glad I got to see all of these too.
In a different vein, not what the OP asked for, but rather large-scale works without the perspective aspect, take a look at Stan Herd’s work, where he uses whole fields as a canvas. I first saw his work when I saw a movie called Earthwork with John Hawkes as Stan Herd.

There’s Vic Muniz’s Wasteland project as documented in the Academy Award-nominated documentary Wasteland, where he re-created photos he took of landfill pickers on the floor of a warehouse, by having the pickers themselves fill in the art with recycled garbage.

And of course, Christo.

Crop circles are creative art projects, though usually anonymous. which is unfortunate, because some people still believe aliens are involved. I’d love to see a perspective art crop circle. It’d blow some minds.

17

Not to mention their love of optical illusions, like in the Haunted House. (Ghosts use the same basic technique as was used to make the Tupac “hologram.”