It's a widely held belief that the Old Masters were exactly that: masters, such as da Vinci and Vermeer, WHO painted in cleanly on the nose freehand. In that respect are savants with steady men, no wonder. Simply there are other techniques to consider, which David Hockney (an creative person of our get on who also pioneered iPad art), expounds on in Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Edgar Lee Masters, in which atomic number 2 lays unstylish just how European painters victimised mirrors and lenses to create their compositionally perfect portraits.

That thunderstruck Golan Heights Levin, an interaction designer and a technical school performance artist of sorts–and peerless of Fast Society's people shaping the future of intention in 2012. Wherefore? "For the most part because it seemed suchlike a truth, but none of my colleagues talked about it," he tells Co.Design. Levin teaches at Carnegie Andrew William Mellon and also sits happening the admission staff. "Altogether these students come to me from high train, and they think artwork equals painting, and painting equals realistic picture. They're being set ahead to conceive they need superhuman powers."

Pablo Garcia, an art professor at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, has been hip to the (arguable) approximation for some age and has amassed an encompassing collection of optics. He offered to let Levin try out a camera lucida, one of the tools Hockney says the Old Masters wont to capture their subjects more realistically. Levin loved it, and the duo decided to make a 21st-century version.


A camera lucida is a machine: A small optical prism reflects the image of the subject so the viewer can see their possess hand, positive the visualize, and trace a more accurate rendering onto the paper. The effect isn't far-off off from the Google Ice TV demos we've been seeing. There are layers of images available in your line of peck–for you to enjoyment in some smart direction. Merely the only lucidas still available are collectibles, and trial a price tag N of $300–more than Levin and Garcia believed college students would devote. As it turns out, manufacturing rightful several lucidas costs $20,000, but to each one additional prism costs just pennies.

Which is wherefore the NeoLucida sells for $30. It's perfect for Kickstarter. Since introduction the product on May 8, Levin and Garcia are already audience from people WHO missed out happening the first 2,500 they made purchasable. But unequal most other runaway Kickstarter hits, this isn't–or wasn't–divinatory to be a business enterprise. "This whole thing is a performance, or an intervention, or just artwork," Levin says. Luckily, the project had adequate demand and concern so that antitrust two days subsequently going live, Levin and Garcia confirmed that there will be an inexhaustible second yield head for the hills, conducted past paid manufacturers.

The effects of getting the NeoLucidas out into the market should be engrossing. Animators, filmmakers, and plot-mappers are all groups that Levin and Garcia advert as logical customers. Because for every the advancements we get with graphic illustration and photography, the great unwashe motionless want roller up their sleeves and pull out like an old master.

The project has already raised about $400,000, off the beaten track on the far side its end of $15,000. Keep going the fight Hera.