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Fast/Slow was an installation by Rob Lee at Prism 11, which took place in Sheffield in March 2012. "Rob Lee's wall paintings exploit the specificity of perspective. Cohesively viewed from only one location, elsewhere his words appear as distended and distorted shapes. Fast/Slow reacts to changing temporalities; as the world moves to a pace in which action, reaction and information seem to be processed almost instantly, the act of viewing these words requires work adjustment and articulation." (description taken from the exhibition leaflet) (photos © copyright Russell Light) For more details see: Rob Lee's  website Prism 11 page and Prism website

The Ames room was developed by Adelbert Ames Jr as part of his research into optics and perception during the 1930s and 40s. After an early career as a painter, Ames began to explore the relationship between visual art and the scientific study of vision. He studied opthalmology at Clark University, Massachusetts and became a professor of physiological optics, developing an interest optical illusions. As part of his research, he conducted a series of experiments that he called 'the distorted room demonstrations'. When viewed from the correct position, an Ames room gives the illusion of a standard orthogonal room. It is actually a trapezoid shaped space, which means that people standing in different corners at the back of the room and who appear to be the same distance from the viewer, look as if they are completely different sizes. The optical illusion is so convincing that someone walking across the back of the room appears to increase or decrease in scale as they move from one...