Strike a blow against our insect overlords with these They Live-inspired TV-blocking glasses

The powers that be would have you live your life surrounded by screens, helplessly taking in flashing advertisements against your will. These forces have long worked unopposed, enjoying their domination of your headspace while cackling with glee and counting their stacks of money. Now, by throwing on a pair of special sunglasses, their dread work can be stymied.

That’s right, brothers and sisters: artist and inventor Ivan Cash is currently heading up a Kickstarter for a pair of glasses that block images from many TV screens and computer monitors. Inspired by John Carpenter’s They Live, Cash and crew have made it possible to just sort of shut the world up a little bit by slipping on a pair of blocky, otherwise normal-looking not-Ray-Bans.

According to the Kickstarter, Cash’s “IRL Glasses” work by “flattening and rotating [a] polarized lens 90 degrees,” which blocks “light emitted by LCD/LED” to “[make] it look like the TV or computer in front of you is off.” They’re still a work in progress, which means they won’t obliterate every screen at the time of release. Currently, the glasses work “with most TVs (LCD/LED) and some computers (LCD/LED)“ but can’t “block smartphones or digital billboards (OLED)“ yet. We have to imagine that the next step after these problems are solved is how to make the glasses display the alien skull people controlling our world.

While They Live’s John Nada was able to ignite a revolution against capitalist invaders with his specs, we’ll have to settle with these as a good enough start. The idea that some of the visual noise associated with modern life can now be turned down a little bit is enticing, even if the technology isn’t at a point that they can immediately make an antagonistic Keith David your friend by sticking them on his face during an alleyway brawl.

[via Boing Boing]

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