Reverse Blinking

Imagine that your head is captured inside a photo camera. It is completely dark. Only when the shutter opens en closes, you see the world in a flash. The shutter moves so fast that nothing has time to move. Everything you point your gaze at becomes like a photograph. A memory. Something that has been, but isn’t anymore. You see people as frozen figures, whole streets as untouched moments. Life as a sort of dia show.

“Reverse Blinking” creates this experience. It is a completely closed helmet with two shutters in front of the eyes. They are controllable by the user. Reverse Blinking works on batteries and can be freely used in or outside the museum. It is best used where there is a lot of movement and people.

“Reverse Blinking” is part of a series of art works, through which the artist tries to add video and photographical effects to our natural way of seeing. Where virtual reality goggles are trying to make us believe that the images we see are real, Reverse Blinking does the opposite. The goggles manipulate vision in such a manner that the real environment around us looks utterly unreal, as if it was a photograph or an image. Doing this, it shows us until which degree our society is dominated by images. The world has become an image, and the image has become the reality.