Argus

Narrative function

Surveillance becomes anatomy. A wall of cameras.

A god covered in irises. Use it when paranoia, divinity, or the internet should be visible as too much seeing.

It is the wrong tool for a single honest portrait, and for a tidy split of two scenes. If the same person repeats as clones, that is duplication.

If the frame is divided into panels, that is split screen. If facets mirror one image, that is a kaleidoscope.

How it works

Count the eyes. Place them as objects: on skin, on walls, as a field of viewpoints around a still center.

Keep a readable subject so the swarm has a king. Light each iris with a small catchlight if they are organs.

If they are cameras, give each lens a tiny practical. Do not dissolve them into noise.

Prompt an Argus image of the subject: many eyes, many viewpoints, a creature or a city of looking.

When to use it

Use it for paranoia, gods, a network that stares. Do not use it as extra pupils on a portrait that only needed one pair.

Compared with similar shots

Duplication repeats a person. Argus multiplies looking, not necessarily the whole body.

Split Screen divides the frame into panels of action. Argus can be one composition swarming with eyes.

Kaleidoscope mirrors facets. Here the eyes are the point.

• DuplicationOne person is not a single self.
• Split ScreenTwo rooms, one moment.
• Lens FlareLight is too strong to be polite.

In film

Doctor Strange kaleidoscopes tunnel looking into too many angles. The Fountain multiplies visionary sight.

Grammar of a swarm of gazes, not frames to copy.

Prompt it

Argus image of [Subject], many eyes, many viewpoints, a creature or a city of looking. Count the eyes.

Keep a center. Ban lens flare standing in for pupils, and ban a simple two-panel split.

Argus image of [Subject], many eyes, many viewpoints, a creature or a city of looking.

What usually goes wrong

The usual wrong cousin is flare on a face, or a Split Screen. The tell is no extra eyes as objects, or a tidy two-way divide.

The fix is countable pupils or viewpoints, a swarm with a center.

Questions