We're going to talk -- my -- a new lecture, just
for TED -- and I'm going show you some illusions
that we've created for TED, and I'm going to try
to relate this to happiness. What I was thinking
about with happiness is, what gives happiness --
or happiness, which I equate with joy in my
particular area, and I think there's something very
fundamental. And I was thinking about this. And
it's in terms of both illusions and movies that we
go see and jokes and magic shows is that there's
something about these things where our
expectations are violated in some sort of pleasing
way. You go see a movie. And it has an unexpected
twist -- something that you didn't expect -- and
you find a joyful experience. You look at those
sort of illusions in my book and it's not as what
you'd expect. And there's something joyful about
it. And it's the same thing with jokes and all
these sorts of things. So, what I'm going to try
and do in my lecture is go a little bit further
and see if I can violate your expectations in a
pleasing way. I mean, sometimes expectations that
are violated are not pleasant, but I'm going to try
to do it in a pleasant way, in a very primal way,
so I can make the audience here happy.
So I'm going to show you some ways that we can
violate your expectations. First of all, I want to
show you the particular illusion here. I want you
first of all when it pops up on the screen to
notice that the two holes are perpendicular to
each other. These are all perceptual tricks. These
are real objects that I'm going to show you. Now
I'm going to show you how it is done. I've looped
the film here so you can get a very interesting
experience. I want you to see how this illusion is
constructed, and it's going to rotate so you see
that it's inside out. Now watch, as it rotates
back, how quickly your perception snaps. OK now.
Watch it as it rotates back again. And this is a very
bright audience, all right? See if you can stop it
from happening, even though you know 100 percent it's
true that -- bam! You can't undo it. What does
that tell you about yourselves? We're going to do
it again. No doubt about it. See if you can stop
it from happening. No. It's difficult.
And we can violate your expectations in a whole
variety of ways about representation, about shape,
about color and so forth and it's very primal. And
it's an interesting question to ponder, why these
things -- we find these things joyful. Why would
we find them joyful? So, here's something that
Lionel did a while ago. I like these sort of
little things like this.
Again, this is not an optical trick. This is what
you would see. In other words, it's not a camera
cut. It's a perceptual trick.
OK. We can violate your expectations about
shape.
We can violate your expectations on representation
-- what an image represents. What do you see here?
How many of you here see dolphins? Raise your hand
if you see dolphins. OK, those people who raised
their hands, afterwards, the rest of the audience,
go talk to them, all right? Actually, this is the
best example of priming by experience that I know.
If you are a child under the age of 10 who
haven't been ruined yet, you will look at this
image and see dolphins. Now, some of you adults
here are saying, "What dolphins? What dolphins?"
But in fact, if you reversed the figure ground --
in other words, the dark areas here -- I forgot to
ask for a pointer -- but if you reverse it, you'll
see a whole series of little dolphins. By the way,
if you're also a student at CalTech -- they also
tend to just see the dolphins. It's based on
experience.
Now, something like this can be used because this
is after all talk about design, too. This was
done by Saatchi and Saatchi, and they actually got
away with this ad in Australia. So, if you look at
this ad for beer, all those people are in sort of
provocative positions. But they got it passed, and
actually won the Clio awards, so it's funny how you can do
these things.
Remember that sort of, um. This is the joke I did
when the Florida ballot was going around. You
know, count the dots for Gore; count the dots for
Bush; count 'em again ...
You can violate your expectations about
experience. Here is an outside water fountain that
I created with some friends of mine, but you can
stop the water in drops and -- actually make all
the drops levitate. This is something we're
building for, you know, amusement parks and that
kind of stuff.
Now let's take a static image. Can you see this?
Do you see the middle section moving down and the
outer sections moving up? It's completely static.
It's a static image. How many people see this
illusion? It's completely static.
Right. Now, when -- it's interesting that when we
look at an image we see, you know, color, depth,
texture. And you can look at this whole scene and
analyze it. You can see the woman is in closer than
the wall and so forth. But the whole thing is
actually flat. It's painted. It's trompe l'oeil.
And it was such a good trompe l'oeil that people
got irritated when they tried to talk to the
woman and she wouldn't respond.
Now, you can make design mistakes. Like this
building in New York. So that when you see it from
this side, it looks like the balconies tilt up,
and when you walk around to the other side it
looks like the balconies go down. So there are
cases where you have mistakes in design that
incorporate illusions.
Or, you take this particular un-retouched
photograph. Now, interestingly enough, I get a lot
of emails from people who say, "Is there any
perceptual difference between males and females?"
And I really say, "No." I mean, women can navigate
through the world just as well as males can -- and
why wouldn't they? However, this is the one
illusion that women can consistently do better
than males: in matching which head because they
rely on fashion cues. They can match the hat.
Okay, now getting to a part -- I want to show
design in illusions. I believe that the first
example of illusions being used purposely was by
da Vinci in this anamorphic image of an eye. So
that when you saw from one little angle was like
this. And this little technique got popular in the
16th century and the 17th century to disguise
hidden meanings, where you could flip the image and
see it from one little point of view like this.
But these are early incorporations of illusions
brought to -- sort of high point with Hans
Holbein's "Ambassadors." And Hans Holbein worked
for Henry VIII. This was hung on a wall where you
could walk down from the stair and you can see
this hidden skull.
All right, now I'm going to show you some
designers who work with illusions to give that
element of surprise. One of my favorites is Scott
Kim. I worked with Scott to create some illusions
for TED that I hope you will enjoy. We have one
here on TED and happiness.
OK now. Arthur [Ganson] hasn't talked yet, but his is
going to be a delightful talk and he has some of
his really fantastic machines outside. And so, we
-- Scott created this wonderful tribute to Arthur
Ganson.
Well, there's analog and digital. Thought that
was appropriate here.
And figure goes to ground.
And for the musicians.
And of course, since happiness -- we want "joy to the
world."
Now, another great designer -- he's very well
known in Japan -- Shigeo Fukuda. And he just
builds some fantastic things. This is simply
amazing. This is a pile of junk that when you view
it from one particular angle, you see its
reflection in the mirror as a perfect piano.
Pianist transforms to violinist.
This is really wild. This assemblage of forks,
knives and spoons and various cutlery, welded
together. It gives a shadow of a motorcycle. You learn
something in the sort of thing that I do, which
is there are people out there with a lot of time
on their hands.
Ken Knowlton does wonderful composite images, like
creating Jacques Cousteau out of seashells --
un-retouched seashells, but just by rearranging
them. He did Einstein out of dice because, after
all, Einstein said, "God does not play dice with
the universe." Bert Herzog out of un-retouched
keyboards. Will Shortz, crossword puzzle. John
Cederquist does these wonderful trompe l'oeil
cabinets.
Now, I'm going to skip ahead since I'm sort of running
[behind]. I want to show you quickly what I've
created, some new type of illusions. I've done
something with taking the Pixar-type illusions. So
you see these kids the same size here, running
down the hall. The two table tops of the same size.
They're looking out two directions at once. You
have a larger piece fitting in with a smaller. And
that's something for you to think about, all
right? So you see larger pieces fitting in within
smaller pieces here. Does everyone see that? Which
is impossible. You can see the two kids are
looking out simultaneously out of two different
directions at once. Now can you believe these two
table tops are the same size and shape? They are.
So, if you measured them, they would be. And as I say,
those two figures are identical in size and shape.
And it's interesting, by doing this in this sort
of rendered fashion, how much stronger the
illusions are. Any case, I hope this has brought
you a little joy and happiness, and if you're
interested in seeing more cool effects, see me
outside. I'd be happy to show you lots of things.