Klecksography
The art of the folded ink blot
Drop ink on paper, fold it, open it: the blot is mirrored, and suddenly something looks back. People have been playing with that moment for more than 150 years.
A short history
- Mid-1800s
The German poet and physician Justinus Kerner folds ink blots into ghostly figures and writes verses to them. He calls them klecksographs; his book “Kleksographien” appears in 1890, after his death.
- 1896
The book “Gobolinks” turns blot-folding into a game for children and grown-ups: make a blot, find the creature, give it a rhyme.
- 1921
Hermann Rorschach publishes ten inkblots for his psychological test. That is where the famous butterflies and bats come from.
- Today
Blotkins brings the fold to the phone: you drop the ink, fold the page, and a little wizard helps the blot wake up.
Why we see faces
Our brains are always looking for faces – in clouds, power sockets and coffee foam. That is called pareidolia. A folded blot makes it easy: the fold makes it symmetrical, like a face or an animal, and two dots side by side read as eyes.
Make one on paper
- Fold a sheet of paper in half and open it again.
- Drop a few blobs of ink or watery paint on one half, close to the fold.
- Fold it shut and press firmly with your hand. The longer you press, the further the ink spreads.
- Open it slowly. The blot is now mirrored on both halves.
- Look for the eyes. Once it is dry, draw them in – and give your creature a name.
Or let the wizard do it
In Blotkins the fold happens on your phone – on iPhone Duo you simply close it. The app reads the shape and turns it into a creature with a name, a species and a line from its field guide.
Nokewing
Nibvidot
Tetshell Zu