[quote]Illusions give us a greater appreciation of how we view the world and this exhibition brings us closer to understanding the magic of the mind.” — Richard Wiseman, curator of ILLUSION[/quote]
San Diego, CA, USA — ILLUSION: Nothing Is As It Seems at the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center is a mind-bending new exhibition that combines science and art to deceive the visitor through optical, perceptual and audio illusions. It shows that what we perceive is often radically different from the reality of what we observe by playfully allowing visitors to experience concepts used by magicians and explored by neuroscientists. The exhibition is sponsored by CYMER and the Reuben H. Fleet Foundation Fund.
“We are very excited to be able to bring the U.S. premiere of this remarkable exhibition here to San Diego,” said Dr. Steven Snyder, executive director of the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center. “ILLUSION will immerse our visitors in a world that will make them question their senses while exploring the workings of the human mind.”
ILLUSION was developed and first exhibited at Science Gallery at Trinity College Dublin. It was curated by psychologist, author and magician Richard Wiseman, and researched by deception artist Paul Gleeson. The exhibition features 21 installations that distort the senses and mystify logical thinking. Typographic Organism is made from letters, but their movements suggest that they are actually small creatures, like bees trapped in a bottle. They start moving when people blow on them, and their hustle and bustle poetically mixes semantics of language and motion. You. Here. Now. creates the visitor’s portrait from smaller images captured by a system that constantly trawls local news websites. The visitor’s face will gradually emerge from several hundred tiny fragments that are in a continuous state of flux. The Illusion Playground, a collection of the Fleet’s hands-on, interactive exhibits, will be located adjacent to ILLUSION.
“I have created an exhibit that will inspire and educate people of any age,” said Richard Wiseman, curator of ILLUSION. “Each piece in the show deceives the brain with either an optical, perceptual or audio illusion.”
ILLUSION runs until January 11, 2015.
www.rhfleet.org/exhibitions/illusion.
