Sidewall, Bloom

Gift of one roll of "Bloom", a 3-D or anaglyph wallpaper design containing a dense assemblage of Aeonium cacti. The design was inspired by photographs of the cacti which the artist used to compose this lush explosion of blooms.
This design was selected from Deep, 3D Wallpaper, a collection produced as a collaboration between Connecticut wallpaper company twenty2 and Pratt Institute. Twenty2 served as critics and mentors in an ongoing graduate seminar on interactive pattern and ornament led by Yale architect and Pratt Institute professor Sarah Strauss.
Anaglyphs were first developed in the 1850s and the first 3D motion picture was projected in 1893. Anaglyphs have been used in a variety of media including comic books, magazine ads and newspapers. The principle behind the stereo view or anaglyph 3D is the printing of two identical images, one in red, one in blue, slightly off-register to make up the stereo view. When viewed through the red and blue lenses in the anaglyph glasses only one of the two images is seen by each eye. The brain then fuses these images into the perception of a three-dimensional composition.
Twenty2 was founded by Kyra and Robertson Hartnett in Brooklyn, New York in 2003. Their designs are predominantly geometric, with a few florals in the mix, all rendered with a contemporary styling. While working on their first collection of wallpaper they visited the Cooper Hewitt for inspiration by looking through the wallpaper slide carousels. The digital print wallpapers are produced at their Litchfield, CT studio.
The Deep collection is the first commercially produced 3D or anaglyph wallpaper. It may seem a mere novelty and the design is attractive with or without the glasses. Viewing the paper through the glasses takes the wallpaper to a whole new dimension. "Bloom" would complement the museum's group of novelty papers, and contemporary American studios, as well as a contemporary rendering of a floral wallpaper.

Sidewall, Bloom; Collaborator: Pratt Institute (American, founded 1887); Produced by twenty2 wallpaper; digital print on paper; L x W: 457.2 × 152.4 cm (15 ft. × 60 in.); Gift of twenty2 wallpaper; 2015-28-1

This object was previously on display as a part of the exhibition Saturated: The Allure and Science of Color.