Opto-Isolator – Artwork That Stares Back At You

By Andrew Liszewski

Here’s a unique piece that explores the idea of how artwork would respond if it knew we were looking at it. The Opto-Isolator sculpture is a black box with a robotic, human-sized blinking eye in the dead center. It responds to the gaze of whoever’s staring at it with a series of “psychosocial eye-contact behaviors” like looking the viewer directly in the eye, studying the viewers face, looking away coyly if it’s stared at for too long and even blinking exactly one second after you do.

While the photos themselves are pretty creepy, you’ll want to check out the YouTube video showing the Opto-Isolator in motion. At times it can be frighteningly realistic, even if the blinking action sounds louder than a clapboard.

The Opto-Isolator was designed and built by Golan Levin and Greg Baltus, and was recently exhibited at the Bitforms Gallery in New York.

[ Opto-Isolator ] VIA [ Cribcandy ]