It's a widely held belief that the Old Masters were incisively that: masters, so much as district attorney Vinci and Vermeer, who painted in flawlessly precise freehand. There are savants with steady hands, nary question. Merely there are other techniques to consider, which David Hockney (an artist of our age who also pioneered iPad art), expounds on in Secret Cognition: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters, in which he lays out on the nose how European painters secondhand mirrors and lenses to create their compositionally unmitigated portraits.

That surprised Golan Heights Levin, an interaction designer and a tech performance creative person of sorts–and one of Fast Company's people constructive the tense of intent in 2012. Why? "Largely because it seemed ilk a truth, simply none of my colleagues talked almost information technology," he tells Co.Design. Levin teaches at Andrew Carnegie Andrew W. Mellon and also sits on the admission staff. "Every these students get along to Maine from senior high, and they recollect art equals painting, and painting equals realistic painting. They're being band up to believe they need superhuman powers."

Pablo Garcia, an artwork professor at the Educate of the Art Institute in Chicago, has been hip to the (controversial) idea for some old age and has amassed an extensive collection of optics. He offered to Lashkar-e-Toiba Levin try out a camera lucida, one of the tools Hockney says the Old Masters accustomed enchant their subjects more realistically. Levin loved it, and the duo decided to make a 21st-century version.


A camera lucida is a simple machine: A small optical prism reflects the image of the subject so the viewer can see their own hand, plus the pictur, and trace a more accurate rendering onto the paper. The set up isn't far turned from the Google Glass picture demos we've been seeing. There are layers of images available in your line of vision–for you to use in or s smart way. But the only lucidas notwithstandin available are collectibles, and run a price tag northwards of $300–much Levin and Garcia believed college students would pay. Every bit it turns impossible, manufacturing just several lucidas costs $20,000, but each additional prism costs just pennies.

Which is why the NeoLucida sells for $30. It's perfect for Kickstarter. Since launching the product on May 8, Levin and Garcia are already hearing from people World Health Organization lost stunned on the first 2,500 they made available. But unlike well-nig other runaway Kickstarter hits, this isn't–or wasn't–supposed to represent a business. "This whole thing is a performance, or an intervention, surgery just nontextual matter," Levin says. Luckily, the project had enough requirement and interest so that just two days after going live, Levin and Garcia unchangeable that there will be an unlimited second production political campaign, conducted aside professional manufacturers.

The effects of getting the NeoLucidas exterior into the market should be interesting. Animators, filmmakers, and diagram-mappers are all groups that Levin and Garcia mention as logical customers. Because for all the advancements we get with vivid illustration and photography, mass still need roll ascending their sleeves and tie like an mature master.

The project has already raised astir $400,000, far beyond its goal of $15,000. Livelihood the campaign Hera.