If you happened to time-travel back to the year 1955 and told Marilyn Monroe that in her future she would resemble Albert Einstein, she probably would have passed out. In 1955, Marilyn Monroe was twenty-five years old while Albert Einstein was seventy-six years old, so she must have seen or heard about him during her lifetime. Even with all his physics, Einstein himself would have been baffled to think he could ever resemble Marilyn Monroe in any alternate universe or future. How is this possible, you say? In a galaxy far, far away? No, I’m just kidding. Let’s take a trip to the MIT Museum.
On the first floor of the MIT Museum lies, or rather hangs, an art piece that in my opinion stands out from all the pieces in the museum’s collection. The museum consists of a main gallery which is on the second floor and a second, less obvious gallery on the first floor right behind the museum’s gift shop. This second gallery is called “The Innovation Gallery.” It houses stations which each display banners and TV screens. The TV screens stream videos in which experts discuss innovations in fields such as Social Cognition, Nano-technology and Holography. Amidst the wave of murmurs from the gift shop, the clinking of coins at the counter and the abstract discussion of complex theories at the video stations lies a particular piece on one of the walls which many walk by without realizing what they’ve just missed. The piece itself is made up of an array of eight framed photos placed side-by-side in two rows and four columns. The photos in each row and column are nearly equidistant from each other, and as a result the space between every four photos resembles the outline of a crucifix. That’s it; nothing more, nothing less. At first glance, all the photos seem to be portraits of Albert Einstein. However, as you back away from the wall on which the photos hang, your eyes begin to decipher the true nature of the piece. It is as if by moving back, you enable your eyes to become truly opened.
“It is as if by moving back, you enable your eyes to become truly opened.”
The first time this dawned on me, I paced back and forth from the wall like a madman, trying to convince myself that what I was seeing was real. As you move farther and farther away from one of the pictures, Einstein’s shape magically transforms: the sharp, well-defined, highly accentuated strokes that build the famous face of the brilliant physicist begin to fade away, giving way to an amorphous, blurry image of Marilyn Monroe that materializes from the background. As you continue moving back, the two people switch places —Einstein becomes a barely distinguishable blob of white and grey, almost like a fadeout on an old photograph, while the charismatic actress exposes her contagious smile to the eyes of the viewer. So, there’s no reason for our 1955 Marilyn Monroe to pass out after all.
If you back away from the array again, this time shifting your attention to the image in the top left corner, you’ll be dazzled once more. Like dust being slowly blown off a centuries-old mosaic, Einstein’s features again begin to fade away. This time, the features of a young man begin to emerge: piercing blue eyes, short but elegantly trimmed hair, meticulously formed cheek bones, thick eye brows partially obscured by horn-rimmed glasses.
“Magnanimously accepting his turn in the spot light, Daniel Radcliffe takes his place.”
Magnanimously accepting his turn in the spotlight, Daniel Radcliffe takes his place. Let me go over it again because it takes some getting used to: as you move back from the array, Einstein’s form and features begin to fade into the background and the actual picture breaks forth and begins to take shape until it is fully formed and recognizable. Starting from the top left, the images are portraits of Daniel Radcliffe, Marilyn Monroe, Sigmund Freud, Salvador Dali, Sean Connery, John Lennon, Madonna and finally Albert Einstein in the bottom right.
This illusion, specifically known as a hybrid illusion, is all about visual perception. The hybrid images reflect the research conducted by MIT Professor Aude Oliva of the Brain and Cognitive Science Department and her colleagues Professors Philippe Schyns and Antonio Torallba. The caption for the piece states: “A hybrid image is a single image with two different
interpretations: what you see depends on how far away from the images you are.” To paraphrase the rest of the caption, each photo, except the original portrait of Einstein, contains an image at a low resolution and an image at a high resolution that have been printed on top of each other.
“Apparently, cameras aren’t as easily fooled as we are.”
The low resolution image has broad patterns of light and dark with little detail; the high resolution image has sharp, fine lines which provide much detail. When you look at the picture up close, you focus on details and therefore you only see the high resolution image. When you move backwards, you begin to lose the details and thus focus on the broad outlines – the low resolution image. Deborah Douglas, the science and technology curator at the museum, also points out that you can look at the pictures from any distance through a camera and see the actual images. Apparently, cameras aren’t as easily fooled as we are. The reason for this is that cameras have a faster refresh rate than our eyes. If you don’t mind looking silly and decide to look at the pictures while blinking really fast, you can actually see the embedded images without moving too far back.
The hybrid illusion piece is simple in its complexity. A fusion of innovation and art, it is a true representation of MIT’s drive to integrate innovation into all aspects of our lives. I believe that art should always tell a story. This piece reminds us that once in a while, we should take a moment to step back and look at the big picture; things are not always what they seem.
