Craigwork

The lines of the house are electrical tape applied to the walls and floor. With this picture, your brain really wants to keep believing there is a three-dimensional house sitting there, but my head and hand are on the wrong side of things. Your brain compromises by perceiving that I am leaning weirdly towards you.

Beginning to build

Here it's easy to see that the lines are taped down on the floor and walls. Only when viewed through the peephole does the illusion click.

The way I work it, an anamorphic drawing is simply a permanent drawing of a shadow. The light source was a single, small, bright bulb placed exactly at the location of the peephole. The physical "house" that cast the shadow was "built" line by line: wherever I needed a line to appear I mounted a length of steel tube, replicated its shadow with tape, then moved to the next line. So, in a way, the illusory house actually did exist in that space, just not all at once.

Duc Nguyen was my dedicated student assistant.

The house existed only for a few weeks.