Many pictures are described as having eyes that follow you around the room. I've never been convinced but at MadGallery Ltd there can be no doubt. Eyes are mounted on tall, elegant brushed steel stands, complete with movement sensors. Once a connoisseur has looked at the picture, and moved away, the eyes follow him/her around the room, out into the lobby, and perhaps even down the street, until they get bored and come back to their picture, ready to follow their next victim.

I envisage several bemused connoisseurs walking just a little too fast, followed at a respectful distance by wobbling very slightly on their stalks.

I still can't decide whether to have the eyes flat to blend into the painting better, or spherical with optical nerves trailing out the back, and whether to have them singularly or in pairs with false glasses and moustaches.

<pun alert> The eyes have it </pun alert>
-- MadnessInMyMethod, Oct 13 2008

As Pete says "If the eyes follow you around the room it's a good painting. If they don't, it isn't." http://www.youtube....watch?v=i67bLK4uQAE
Vernon Ward was a master (apparently). [Gordon Comstock, Oct 14 2008]

Lenticular, for [4whom] http://www.all-crea...mages/i-lentils.jpg
[normzone, Oct 14 2008]

What happens if half a dozen people look at the work? How do the eyes know which person to follow and how do they do this? Very close to being "magic", unless more detail is provided.
-- xenzag, Oct 13 2008


No I don't think it's magic, facial recognition software could find the first person to look at the work at close range, the problem I see is how the eyes move outside the painting. I mean, they could roll, but that isn't right. Maybe they float on overhead wires or slither along propelled by the optic nerve, but neither seems right.
-- MisterQED, Oct 13 2008


<MisterQED> I imagined the eyes in front of the picture. They probably won't blend in very well, hence the idea of flat eyes. I thought about overhead wires, but I like the idea of something like scutters from red dwarf, making a similar noise as they drive along.

<xenzag> - What MisterQED said. I didn't include the electronic wizardry in the idea, as I could think of a few ways it could probably be done, but I'm not an electronics expert, so don't know which is best. My guess would be some type of movement sensor like in a burgler alarm, which detects when a person is standing near the picture for more than 10 seconds, then follows them when they go away. For a lowish-tech solution, use CCTV and a remote control.

There would be lots of eyes, so when one set goes off to follow a viewer, another will take its place
-- MadnessInMyMethod, Oct 14 2008


What happened to the Thom York Radiohead Headradio idea?
Of course there, the problem was it couldn't look you in the eye. I suppose it just didn't belong here.
-- AbsintheWithoutLeave, Oct 14 2008


//As Pete says "If the eyes follow you around the room it's a good painting. If they don't, it isn't."// utter, laughable crap. I would register this statement as a 90 on the McPalin Cretin Index. (see Vernon's Stupidity idea)
-- xenzag, Oct 14 2008


"She could even look you in the eye"

The Clash
-- normzone, Oct 14 2008


Even if you stood there for any period of time and then moved on, the next person needs a new set of eyes to follow them. I think you will have to go lenticular here. And that is widely known to exist.

As for art that is "not good" if it doesn't look at you. The problem might be in the eye of the beholder.
-- 4whom, Oct 14 2008


<squints at [4whom]>
-- po, Oct 14 2008



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