Elf Sternberg

This is one of my favorite public art installations. It's in the Seattle Bus Tunnel underneath Benaroya Hall, the city's main symphony hall. It's a black wall with vertical strips of LED's that flicker, seemingly at random.

For years, when I walked past it, I thought it was trying to tell me something. The name wasn't enough of a giveaway, although I know what the saccades are, "quick, simultaneous movements of both eyes in the same direction." What we see isn't what's coming in through the eye, but a mosaic of millisecond-by-millisecond images collected as the eye flickers back and forth.

I finally figured it out. Images are being dragged across the narrow vertical strip. If you move your eyes horizontally fast enough, you can see the images.

You can simulate the effect with a camera.

( Today's images would make PZ Myers smile. )