Argus

Eyes cover the subject and the space around them, at different sizes and different angles, all of them open. The frame is full of being watched.

It works on a reflex. People find eyes in noise before they find anything else, so a frame packed with them is exhausting to look at in a way that a crowd of faces is not.

Vary the size and the angle, as the note says. Identical eyes at one scale read as wallpaper. Eyes at a dozen scales, some in profile, some half closed by a fold of skin, read as a thing rather than a pattern.

Let them sit on the surfaces that are already there. Eyes in the fabric, in the wall, in the dark between objects, each one lit by the light that falls on the surface it is part of.

Keep some of the original subject legible. A face still recognisable under the eyes is more disturbing than a shape made entirely of them.

Use it for paranoia, surveillance, guilt, and mythological or religious imagery where being seen is the subject.

Skip it when the frame has to carry anything else. Eyes take the whole of an audience's attention and leave nothing for the rest of the picture.

Duplication repeats a whole person and asks to be believed as a physical fact of the room. Argus repeats one feature across a surface and makes no claim to be physically possible.

The test is what is repeated. Whole figures is duplication. One feature covering everything is argus.

A neat grid of identical eyes comes back, which is a texture fill. Say the eyes vary in size and angle and sit on the surfaces of the scene.

The second failure is a subject completely buried. Ask for the original face to stay readable underneath.