How To See The World With “Magic Eyes”
The Weirdness of Vision, Encountering the Unknown, and 1990’s Kitsch
If you came by our house at any point around 1992, you’d have encountered a small curation of ‘Magic Eye’ posters.
Magic Eye posters — with their secret three-dimensional worlds, hidden beneath computer-rendered quasi-psychedelia — were a legitimate craze of the 1990’s.
Whether or not you could see the hidden 3D image was a matter of bragging rights. If you could not see the magic picture, it felt like you were locked out of some kind of secret society.
Indeed, those who could not see, were not worthy.
After we brought home our first Magic Eye poster from Golf Mill Mall in Niles, IL, I stared at it in frustration for hours.
My muggle eyes could not complete the magical leap and hold the 3D image for more than a moment.
Ripples — brief edges… of something. That’s all I could see for days.
Until finally, MAGIC happened — and I could see.
“Synchronicity is an ever-present reality…
