mirages.

The mirage project ?

Mirage is an experimental project based on optical illusions induced by superposed moiré shapes. A movement is made visible thanks to different screen's sizes. the concept of responsive designs then becomes the main vector for this experimentation, thus creating an effect of depth, movement and noise through the design. Mirage insists on screens as a support for creation making experiments with the production of numerical collages through different visualisations. The User is invited to interact with the size of the screen and discover visual effects from the principles of a "moirage". This website project illustrates the very definition of what a mirage is, an optical effect which creates an illusion.

After several ideas and sketches we wanted to assemble two objects to create a third one. Using the size of the screen to merge those two objects. Having this in mind we began theorical researches on "net-art", "cinetic art" and "responsive design". We were interested in Rafael Rozendaal who is an artist making use of net-art, he sells those HTLM/CSS as artistic realisations. We also wanted our internet project to be a creative support. Those abstract and colourful works directly influenced us. We also have been interested by the "moirés" works from Malte Martin. He uses the effect of moiré on paper but we wanted to inspire ourselves to make our own virtual moirés. A moiré is the effect of contrast made from superposing two even threads in movement. The idea to create our own even threads then became very motivating. We extracted ideas from our respective researches and created our own threads, while having a reminder that each thread must fit with the others and create the effect from a moiré when put together.

Following this, we selected 6 moirés with different threads. Our website is composed as follows : a home page with 6 different animated moirés with a possibility to zoom in and out. Those 6 animations allow the user to see how the movement proceeds : vertically, horizontally or when rotating.

This movement could not be perceived once in full screen so it was important to show it on the home page. Once the user clicks on a moiré of his choice, a new window appears, inviting to play with the size of the screen to reveal the threads movement and the different effects produced. the optical effect, combined with vivid colours provoke an hypnotic visual discomfort.

Work made by Sofia Rodrigues Dantas , Tiffany Garrido and Marius Turpin , as part of a workshop called "Spatial request" animated by Louise Drulhe and Raphaël Bastide within the Campus Fonderie de l’Image.

© Typographie Karmilla create by Jonny Pinhorn, Raphaël Bastide, Manuel Schmalstieg, Nicolas Maravitti.