SBST 2818, 1986

Ludwig Wilding was a German Op and Kinetic artist. He created three dimensional structures with shifting patterns using black and white designs. His work aimed at disorienting the viewer using tricks of where the eye would focus. 
Ludwig Wilding had always been interested in visual perception of space and creating illusions of depth in pictures. Ludwig Wilding's work was inspired by the Modernists and M.C. Escher and he is responsible for inventing the technology of using superimposition of interference which created three dimensional optical illusions. In the 1950's his "optical interference" identified and isolated the line using black and white as the primary structure in his work. By the 1960's Ludwig Wilding began to incorporate two and three dimensional images by constructing "interfering objects" where he then superimposed a network of lines to produce effects of optical vertigo. Ludwig Wilding's works question the interaction between the viewer's eye and brain. His patterns appear to shift and flicker as the viewer looks at them, confusing the eye. He often referred to his work as "irritating art" as he incorporated the limits of visual perception and viewers often have to rub their eyes as the patterns physically irritate them. Ludwig Wilding's works have appeared in museums across the globe including the United States and Germany.