This holiday season, you should get yourself a pack of googly eyes and eyebomb your city – it will help you see public space in new ways, and help spread a little humor to your fellow humans.
Medium published a piece exploring the history of eyebombing, which they trace to a French artist in the late 1980s:
The earliest example of eyebombing as a larger movement comes from a French artist in the late 80s. Domininique Benracassa's project, "Ca Vous Regarde", which translates to either "Is is In Your Interest" or "It's Up To You" depending on the contextual information around it, is described on the artist's website as an urban intervention installation project.
Eyebombing really exploded a little over a decade ago thanks to Danish duo Kim Nielson and Peter Dam, who have eyebombed Copenhagen (and other cities) and who started a Tumblr to share their work. They specifically saw eyebombing as a way to anthropomorphize everyday objects, enhance public spaces, and bring humor to folks wandering through those spaces. Their rules included:
1. Only images of inanimate objects with wiggle eyes – NOT stickers.
2. Only images taken in the public space.
3. No eyes on eyes.
Here's a cool video by the BBC exploring their work. You can also keep up with them on Twitter. And here's an interesting piece in Mashable about photographer Vanyu Krastev, who, inspired by Nielson and Dam, brought eyebombing to Bulgaria. And here's a subreddit devoted to eyebombing where you can upload your own examples. Finally, there's even a catchy tune by Caspar Babypants called Googly Eyes – enjoy!
