Mirage Motion Media, a Toronto-based startup, has developed “interactive motion panels” that play “video” clips — without the use of any electronics or moving parts — on seemingly standard advertising light boxes. Walk by, and the picture moves. Stop, and it stops with you. Keep going, and it picks up where it left off.

The box works thanks to persistence of vision. Beginning with high-definition video footage, Mirage uses an algorithm to create a single “smudged” image, which is then printed with an inkjet printer and installed beneath glass embedded with a sort of fine-grained mesh that creates a series of apertures.
The apertures control which pieces of the image are seen from a given angle — then your brain does the rest, reordering the image in a way that makes it appear to move. “We’re able to get away from any moving parts by using nature’s tricks on itself,” says entrepreneur Mark Beukers. Theoretically, the only limit on the length of the clip is the length of the light box. “You can show Ben Hur on this thing,” adds inventor Hall Train.
Via MIT advertising lab Business Week.
Related: Frame-by-frame underground ads.