This Hairy "Mirror" Is Both Fascinating And Unnerving

If you have issues with clumps of fur or hair that seemingly move on their own, now would be a good time to look away. Otherwise, proceed at your own risk and be mesmerized, or revolted, by this one of a kind mirror. Not only does it not accurately reflect objects placed in front of it, it actually doesn't have any reflective material at all. Instead, it creates a silhouette "reflection" made up of only two colors and created by an array of 928 faux fur pom poms.

The way it works is simple in concept. An Xbox Kinect acts as the eyes of the contraption that detects objects in front o the "mirror". The data is fed into custom software running on a Mac mini that then controls the motors behind the "mirror". This motors control whether the beige or black side of a pom pom is pushed to the foreground, depending on whether the space should occupy the silhouette (black) or not (beige).

The end result, however, is both mesmerizing and hair-raising. Pun totally intended. The machine reacts in near real-time to reflect the silhouette of a moving person. Considering that are motors and physical motors involved, that's a bit impressive.

Of course, it's not a perfect mirror, not even a perfect silhouette, given the low resolution (furxels perhaps?) on this creation. It is also a very noisy one, given how the motors loudly hum while in use. It does make for a rather freaky yet interesting display. And we have artist Daniel Rozin to thank for this piece of art. Or nightmare, if you see it that way.

VIA: MAKE