12 Rotoreliefs

Duchamp had a well-documented interest in optical illusions, employing them as visual manifestations of puns. Applying optical illusions to mechanical and kinetic forms, he created Rotoreliefs, which are discs printed with hypnotic designs meant to come alive while spun on a turntable. The idea of this “playtoy” as Duchamp dubbed them, stemmed from his Dadaist film Anemic Cinema, which featured an early version of the Rotoreliefs displaying cheeky puns on rotating discs.

Duchamp created 500 sets of Rotoreliefs in total, each with six double-sided discs presenting 12 designs of varying colors and illusions. Duchamp debuted his creations at an inventors’ fair in 1953 and sold very few. Despite the project being a commercial failure, Duchamp’s use of movement to convey depth was admired by optical scientists, who hoped the concept could be used to help patients with one eye regain three-dimensional perception.