Mirrors are a bit dull. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of seeing the same old face staring back at me every time I look into one. Obviously, something has to be done.

So – take a normal mirror, then cut it up into small mirrored mosaic-like squares. So instead of one mirror, you’ve now got a bunch of tiny mirrors, and lots of little reflections of you looking up at you expectantly.

Arrange the mosaic mirror tiles back into the shape of the original mirror, but sneakily use grouting, plastecine, blu-tac or any other underhanded means to ensure that each tiny tile is slightly skew-whiff – it’s no longer a flat surface, but slightly angled.

Basically, when the whole thing is put together and hung on a wall, it’s a fractured mirror that, when you stand in front of it, you can’t actually see yourself. The tiny mosaic tiles are all sneakily arranged so that they’re all looking at you askance – unlike a proper mirror that just throws your reflection right back at you, this mirror takes your appearance and throws it to all corners of the room.

Useless and rubbish, I know. But then what you do is load up one of those overhead projector things with an image you find interesting, place it at your typical eyeline when you see the mirror, and switch it on. The room is now splashed with colour in a scattershot kind of way.

Don artist’s apron, take up your palette, and strive to mix the colours you now see upon your walls. Wherever you see a splodge of colour on your wall, you match it and paint it in place. Make it permanent.

Hours later, you switch off the projector. And perhaps have a cigarette, if you’re that way inclined. Your room has seemingly random blobs of colour splodged all over it – but, tired, weary and paint-stained, when you stand before your mirror, all your scattered dawbings come together to form the picture you originally projected onto the mosaic mirror.

If you don’t mind living in a paint-spattered, random décor nightmare of a room, there’s no reason why you can’t have multiple pictures spread throughout your room. Looking at the mosaic mirror rewards you with a different picture whether you’re sitting down on the couch or standing up by the door.

With enough effort, strategic blinking while your eyeline moves through a pre-defined path could perhaps result in a zoetrope-type moving picture experience.

Or perhaps not.
-- lostdog, Feb 26 2006

3d paintjobs http://my.opera.com...rscreen=20&id=32317
your idea...minus the mirror. [youfink, Mar 02 2006]

//Mirrors are a bit dull//

was the pun intentional? If so, was it worth it? Was it?

Pun aside though, this seems like an ingenius and perhaps horrifying (imagine having some stranger staring back at you) idea+
-- jellydoughnut, Feb 26 2006


Would you look at that, why all those random splashes make a croissant when you look in the mirror.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Feb 26 2006


A movie could work if every splash of paint was in fact a tiny (still functioning) portion of a tv sreen of the same size and shape. They would have to be started at the same time, though.

Much easier and less expensive would be to do the projecting and painting proccess as described, then move the projector ever so slightly, place another picture on, and paint it. This way, as you walk by the mirror, the picture would change. You could paint pictures that were related. Imagine walking past the mirror and seeing a gazelle running with you.
-- jellydoughnut, Feb 26 2006


I like it. Perhaps you could achieve a similar effect with a Disco ball by having realtime video installations on your walls.
-- neilp, Feb 26 2006


I like the idea, although I think the eye would need to be in exactly the right position, including distance.
But that would probably make it more fun i.e. find the hidden picture(s).Big +.
-- Ling, Feb 27 2006


Ling - good point. But if you made the splashes of colour on the wall slightly bigger than the reflected colours, you could probably get a bit more leeway on the viewing angle.
-- lostdog, Feb 28 2006


woof!
-- po, Feb 28 2006


I suppose if you point the projector upwards and have a speech impediment, then there's no reason why your woof might not be as colourful as your walls...

Hi po.
-- lostdog, Feb 28 2006


Very clever.
-- bungston, Mar 01 2006


[lostdog], the tolerance for position is better if it is arranged so that the focal point is further away.

I imagine this could be set up in a science museum, where school kids are instructed as follows:
"OK. Red T-shirt stand there. Blue top sit there. Hold yellow flag there.", with the instructions written on the floor etc. and a video camera displays the result on a large monitor. But I suppose the pixel count wouldn't be so good.

edit: disregard the last sentence - the pixel count is not dependant on the number of kids. Each kid could be used a multiple number of times.
-- Ling, Mar 01 2006


You would need pairs of spots, one for each eye. While you're at it, why not make it 3D? +
-- spidermother, Mar 01 2006


Excellent. Instead of the "painting blobs of colour on your walls" step, you could instead photograph these your walls with these reflected blobs of colour in them and then use two or three LCD projectors to project the images back on the walls to give the reconstituted image when you look in the mosaic mirror. This would allow you to project video as well as images through the mirror.
Another refinement would be to map the transformation the mosaic mirror makes and then apply this transformation _in software_ to an image or a video before projecting it in blobs onto your walls and viewing it through your mosaic mirror.
-- hippo, Mar 01 2006


Can you tell the difference between a splodge and an inverted splodge?
-- Ling, Mar 02 2006


woof, hi yourself... woof! write soon.
-- po, Mar 02 2006



random, halfbakery