Vantage Tees II (Near/Far)

See Tees Differently
Most tees are the same: splashy graphic or logo centered on a shirt for others to read. Vantage Tees are site-specific art pieces using optical illusions and body-specific effects to change everything about how people interact with their attire. Some shirts look different if you are looking at them or wearing them. Some ask you to be really close or really far. Others take time to see them. Vantage Tees will look different to everyone—it all depends on your vantage point.

Vantage Tees: Near/Far

Near/Far alters the common t-shirt's range of clarity. Most tees, with a message or graphic, are meant to be read from up close or at least within the general space of the wearer. Details are usually lost from a distance, making the effective range of a t-shirt about 25 feet. Simultaneously, there is no mystery about a shirt's message; when up close the message is often unambiguous and concise. Near/Far subverts the clarity by printing images in incredibly low-resolution dot printing. From up close, a viewer sees black and white dots, making a seemingly random pattern. From over 50 feet away, an image appears, inverting the standard perception arrangement: facial details disappear but the shirt's message is legible.

Like Vantage Tees: Anamorphosis, the shirt is transformed into a provocation, challenging standards of appropriate material to be shown in public. In this version, the image is of a nude female torso, positioned to appear at scale to the wearer. From a distance, the image appears to dematerialize the shirt, showing an x-ray view. Worn on a woman, it becomes a provocative demonstration of what may or may not be their nude body. On a male body, the image displays the same nudity but also an incongruence that makes distant viewers question the wearer's gender. On either body, the provocation occurs at the boundary of common public decency; the image is generally unacceptable for public consumption, but at the distance required to discern its content, the wearer's facial details are unclear.