This idea spawned from an issue of Scientific American magazine.  It’s an issue focused on the concept of illusions and it’s chock full of them.  One of the sections deals with the illusion of anamorphosis, (which is a concept I experimented with on Day 242).

In that section of the magazine there were a few pictures from some art installations that dealt with that concept.  One of them was a sculpture of a guy playing piano except when you looked at it from 90 degrees over it looked like a guy playing the violin.  There was also an image from an art installation (which this particular creative project is emulating) where in the center of the room there was what looked like a pile of garbage, but once you shined a spotlight at it from a particular angle the shadow on the wall revealed the form of two people sitting back to back smoking cigarettes.

I love the concept and the process of doing it with a pile of garbage physically in front of you seems pretty interesting to me.  It’s great that 3D software allows me the chance to recreate this idea virtually in the computer and in a fraction of the time, I imagine.  
 
It’s sort of a surreal experience to compare the shadow projected on the wall to the actual structure creating the shadow.