Rotating Faces / Vases Optical Illusion
We featured a post last year about ambiguous metal sculptures that can be created using photographs of your own face. The sculptures can either look like two faces looking at each other, or a vase (or candlestick if you have a look at the post referenced above). The design is based on psychologist Edgar Rubin’s figure / ground research from the early 20th century.
In the video example below, a small twist is applied in that the vase is not perfectly symmetrical. As it rotates on a turntable, the asymmetry gives the impression that the two faces are deep in conversation with each other.
Try to observe both the talking faces and the rotating vase at the same time. You will find that it is not possible as you can only focus on one interpretation of this figure at any given time. This unique vase was created by Hiromi Wake.