URBAN ART : Picture This

“I don’t see it,” the thirtysomething man in the crew-neck mutters, staring at the drawing on the Long Beach gallery wall. “Look harder, deeper , “ his friend implores. “You get it?” Apparently not; the man shakes his head in disgust and walks away, stopping briefly to admire a David Hockney print. Sure, this is modern art, too, but at least it doesn’t force you to question your very sanity.

Computer-generated “holusions” are cropping up at malls and galleries all over the country. They’ve become a litmus test for the mall-rat pack--a challenge of perception or artistic depth or color coordination or something.

The holusion prints were created in 1992 by Texas-based NVision Grafix, which says it has sold 500,000 prints worldwide, most going for about $45. Each one starts with a three-dimensional scene--a leaping dolphin, as above, for instance, or an F-117 Stealth fighter--which is then masked in a sea of 16 million computer-generated dots.

It’s left to the insightful eye to rediscover the picture within the picture. Relax, pretend you’re falling asleep at the wheel, someone urges. No, concentrate harder. Don’t focus--cross your eyes and soak it in. Stare at a single spot--don’t blink! Watch the reflection from your watch. Don’t wear a white shirt; it’ll screw up the reflection.

It can be just as complicated as it sounds. Just ask Robyn DeJesus, 14, whose dad is holding her firmly in his grip in front of a dinosaur print at an area Z Gallerie, urging her on. No matter what she tries, a wall of daunting dots and meaningless squiggly lines stares back; it just isn’t there. “He kept saying, ‘It’s neat, it’s neat,’ so I wanted to see it,” she says, “but it’s just really frustrating.”

Count Michelle Harris, 36, among the skeptics. “I don’t believe there’s anything there,” she declares. “Everyone here’s on drugs.”