While in Tokyo last week I was lucky to visit the Light Insight exhibit at the NTT ICC, and I’ll be posting about several of the pieces over the next couple of days. The first one to strike me was the Thought Projector by alien productions. The installation projects room-sized images of the viewer’s eye captured by an attendant with an ophthalmology camera. The images are captured and transmitted to the web, where a running database keeps track of all the eyes on the piece. Experiencing the piece is a moving, if ultimately narcissistic experience, as you stare into the giant image of your own eyes. Here is the description from the catalogue:
This installation was inspired by an unrealized concept for “a camera to photograph the thoughts of its subject (through their retina)” mentioned by inventor Nikola TESLA* in 1933. First, the participant sees high-resolution magnified images of the surface and rear of their eye projected on the front wall created through a three-step process. Second, the image is projected on the left wall as overlaid on imagery from an archive prepared by the artists and streamed on the Internet. Thirdly, the result is projected on the right wall, along with comments from Internet viewers.
