Eyebombing
Part of a series on Street Art. [View Related Entries]
About
Eyebombing is a single topic blog that collects photos of googly eyes[1] placed on inanimate objects in public spaces in order to make them appear as if they have a face.
Origin
Predecessors
In 2003, Klutz Press[2] published a hobby book titled Googly Eyes[3], which was composed of photographs of googly eyes on household objects, complete with a bag full of different sized eyes to create your own. One of the earliest photos uploaded to Flickr documenting this practice was taken on August 12th, 2005 by Royce Williams[5] as part of his Drive By Googly Eye Project (far left). In December 2005, a Flickr[4] pool was started to collect these types of images but did not define where users could place their googly eyes.
In 2009, an artist named Tommy posted a series of three photos[10] on his blog from a project he abandoned titled "Things With Googly Eyes on Them." He had purchased the domain name but never went through with the project. Since then, images of googly eyes on objects were collected on various single topic blogs including All Googly[9] in 2009, Googly Eyes on Stuff[7], We Love Googly Eyes[6] and Googly Eyes on Things[8], each in 2011.
Eyebombing
Eyebombing.com was registered on October 25th, 2011 to two Danish artists[11] looking to "define and refine" the practice of placing googly eyes on things. The site placed two restrictions on what type of photo would be considered "eyebombing": the images could only consist of wiggle eyes on inanimate objects found in public space. They began posting these photos to Tumblr, Twitter[13] and Flickr[12] on October 28th.
Spread
Laughing Squid[20] was the first site to pick up on Eyebombing on December 2nd, 2011. That month, a personal blog The Popular Uncanny[21] and Gawker[22] also looked into the fad, noting previous projects that were similar but were not limited to public spaces. In 2012, Eyebombing was also featured on The Mary Sue[23], design blog Core77[24], craft site Make and Takes[25], personal design blog FlutterFlutter[26] and The Pioneer Woman.[27]
Eyebombing photos can be found on Tumblr with the tags eyebomb[14], eyebombers[15], and eyebombing.[16] There is also a Facebook fan page[17] and two Pinterest pinboards.[18][19]
Notable Examples
Search Interest
While "Eyebombing" does not have enough search volume, search for "googly eyes" saw a large jump in April 2008 before it hit an all-time high in December 2011.
External References
[1] Wikipedia – Googly Eyes
[2] WIkipedia – Klutz Press
[3] Barnes & Noble – Googly Eyes
[4] Flickr – Googly Eyes Pool
[5] Flickr – DBGEP #RDW-3: Potted
[6] Tumblr – We Love Googly Eyes
[7] Googly Eyes on Stuff – Home
[8] Tumblr – Googly Eyes on Things
[10] iamnotagoodartist – Abandoned Projects: Things with Googly Eyes on Them
[11] Eyebombing – What is eyebombing?
[12] Flickr – Eyebombing official pool
[13] Twitter – @eyebombing
[14] Tumblr – Posts tagged eyebomb
[15] Tumblr – Posts tagged "eyebombers"
[16] Tumblr – Posts tagged "eyebombing"
[17] Facebook – Eyebombing
[18] Pinterest – Eyebombing By Eyebombers pinboard
[19] Pinterest – Eyebombing pinboard
[20] Laughing Squid – Eyebombing, Humanizing the World, One Googly Eye at a Time
[21] The Popular Uncanny – Eyebombing
[22] Gawker – Eyebombing Is Not ‘the Latest Thing,’ So Don’t Call It That
[23] The Mary Sue – Googly Eyes Everywhere!
[24] Core77 – See The World Differently Through Eyebombing
[25] Make and Takes – Have a Little Fun with EyeBombing
[26] FlutterFlutter – Spring Break DIY: Eyebombing
[27] The Pioneer Woman – Googly Eyebombing
Top Comment
CitizenJim
Apr 06, 2012 at 08:59PM EDT