in your eyes

translated with Goggle traduction images visible …if you look elsewhere

Thanks to Lélia Mordoch, I met her friend Miss.Tic. This astonishing artist has a vigorous style that is perfectly suited to the instantaneous vision of furtive viewers. Yesterday I made this montage using a fragment from his “Etoffe des Eros” and “Correspondante de guerre lasse.”

I’ve already mentioned the astonishing property of LEDs: they can be turned on and off at very high frequencies. To the point that a movement of our eyes creates, and only creates, an image on our retinas, which immediately disappears.

To put it bluntly: the image produced by the Furtiveur is only perceived if we don’t try to see it.

the 2003 Stealth Camera - original electronics by Xavier Delahodde

The line of LEDs vibrates; it attracts the eye. It’s just an enigmatic vertical line. The more closely we look, the more we see nothing. Nothing but this vibrating light. So, weary of it, we look elsewhere. And then a clear, but fleeting, image leaps out at us—it’s a case of saying so.

2006 - <the Furtiveurs are exhibited—windows closed—on the upper floor of the Tourist Office—Place de la Cathédrale in Rouen

Regisseur at the Théâtre de Val de Reuil, Albert Amsallem finds the idea interesting. Albert stages a magician with a stick, so if brandishing the stick creates an image in the audience’s eyes… then it’s “truly” magical! In the theater, coming up with the idea is one thing, and finding the money is another. So Albert settles for a normal stick. Yet Xavier Delahode reduced the size and significantly improved the electronics of the Furtiveur to expand its capabilities and applications. Unfortunately, funding has also been limited.

The years have passed, and I’ve learned from this adventure that there are failures that, over time, become fonder memories.

I hope these words will persuade young designers to continue this research that has barely begun.

the mast of the Villa Noailles in Hyères

The 2022 call for projects for the centenary of the Villa Noailles in Hyères gives me the opportunity to propose a Furtiveur that would also be the mast of the Villa, which has been on the roof since Mallet-Stevens.