If you stare directly at the faces in this video, they will look completely normal. If you stare at the cross, however, you will notice that the faces begin to look ugly and distorted.
This illusion is known as the flashed face distortion effect and recently won second prize at the 2012 Best Illusion of the Year Contest. It was discovered by accident by a student working on face photographs for a different experiment. You can imagine that he was very surprised when the faces appeared to be deformed when he knew they were certainly not.
Something is wrong in the universe. Gravity is no longer working and objects have started rolling uphill. What exactly is going on here? Watch the video from Brusspup below to see the effect. At the end of the video, the secret is revealed.
Today’s illusion is from the late 19th century. It originally appeared in a magazine called Strand in 1899. It addition to being very old, it also happens to be quite ambiguous. What do you see?
Do you see a bearded man’s face or a pair of lovers?
Canadian artist Rob Gonsalves paints surreal scenes that inject a sense of magic into realistic scenes. As a result, his work can be accurately described as “Magic Realism”. Not surprisingly, he has been recognized as the most famous living surrealist painter in North America. In his painting titled “Still Waters” below, a woman appears to be laying down a series of mirrored tiles in the foreground. As you work your way into the background of this painting, however, the mirrored tiles transform into a body of water with a glass-like surface.
One of the many engineering wonders of the Roman Empire were the series of aqueducts that were built to supply drinking water and water for public baths. These structures set a standard of engineering that was not surpassed for nearly one thousand years. Despite this fact, it is highly doubtful that the Roman engineers would have had success constructing the following aqueduct. What do you think?
Percolator is an app available for the iPad and iPhone that allows anyone to transform photographs into multicolor mosaics. Where The Art Is, a London-based artist, used this app on his iPhone to create several dazzling images. One such example below depicts a very famous woman. Do you recognize her?
Continue reading this post to see additional examples of images created by Where The Art Is using the Percolator app.
In 1948, M.C. Escher created a lithograph called “Drawing Hands” which depicted two hands drawing each other into existence. This surreal work has inspired many artists over the last 64 years. One such work is “Escher’s Nightmare” by J.D. Hillberry. His version, a charcoal and pencil drawing on white paper, has a twist. Instead of working as a team to draw each other on the paper, one hand has an eraser and is attempting to destroy the other.
To view more of J.D. Hillberry’s realistic charcoal and pencil drawings or learn about drawing classes that he offers, please visit his website.
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