SEEING Is Believing – 5 Installations That Will Blow Your Mind At The Science Gallery This Weekend

The Science Gallery on Pearse Street has just opened its brand new exhibition called ‘SEEING’, so we went along last night to have a gawk.

The exhibition aims to explore the sense of sight and what goes on inside our brains as our gaze changes. It’s a truly engaging experience with plenty of interactive and mind-boggling installations. Oh, and did we mention that it's completely free?

Here’s why you should check it out for yourself this weekend...

1. Have your portrait drawn for you by some robots

This certainly attracts the crowds. Three robots that go by the name of Paul, or 3RNP for short, act in a theatrical robot installation in which the human becomes the model.

Careful, you have to sit very still for a few minutes but it is well worth it when you see your portrait up on the wall alongside the others!

2. Fool yourself in the magical colour space

You find yourself walking into a small square enclosure only to discover the colours on the walls are changing rapidly. It’s actually down to the fact that our eyes are unable to find a reference to work off, at least that is what the artist, Kurt Laurenx Theinert, told me.

It’s simply fascinating watching the colours change rapidly as the lights fade from one setting to another.

3. Get your face warped by a computer

The purpose of this installation is to warp your face to the point that a computer’s algorithm doesn’t recognise it anymore.

It is startling to discover that you need to become practically unrecognisable for a computer to not be able to tell who you are. And you even get to keep a little print of your hilariously warped portrait.

New Facebook profiler, anyone?

4. Discover what the colour blue sounds like

Bring a pal along for this one.

This installation uses the phenomenon of a rare neurological condition called Synaesthesia where people’s senses become mixed up and they believe they are hearing colours, for example.

By placing different coloured shaped inside the box, different sounds are projected out. Try guessing them!

5. Draw a picture using only your eyes

Sit yourself down and try to keep your gaze as still as possible. The eye tracking technology translates where you are looking into an image on the screen in front of you.

After a bit of practice, you can draw basic shapes such as stars and a heart.

Here’s one I prepared earlier: