In this animation, a person passes a straight rod through two squares in what appears to be an impossible manner.  At the end of the animation, the squares are turned slightly to reveal how the trick was pulled off.

Do you notice anything peculiar about this chameleon standing on a green branch?  Would you believe that it is actually not a chameleon at all?  Would you believe that it is made of two painted women?  Take a look at the image a bit closer and you can figure out exactly how this extraordinary body […]

I always love getting submissions directly from artists that I am not familiar with.  I was fortunate enough to receive an email from Laurent Blachier a few days ago pointing me to some of his topsy-turvy animated gifs.  Laurent is an illustrator, digital collage artist, and caricaturist, among other things.  Below is an animated gif […]

In honor of Presidents’ Day here in the United States, today’s illusion features Barack Obama, the 44th U.S. President.  Both photographs of Obama look fairly normal when viewed upside down.  When the images are inverted, however, it is obvious that his eyes and mouth are upside down on one of photographs and normal on the […]

This animation of an impossible ribbon was created by Erwin Bonsma.  Depending on how you look at it, this ribbon can be perceived as rotating in two different ways.  He credits the original idea to M.C. Escher’s print titled “Cube with Magic Ribbons” which happens to be the first drawing by Escher to feature a […]

Today’s illusion has a pretty interesting effect.  We have featured several animations that are similar to this one (see the Turning Wheel Optical Illusion and the Spinning Dancer Illusion), but I still find the effect to be very fascinating.  The train in this animation is moving at a constant rate of speed.  But what direction […]

I came across this simple animation this weekend and thought it had a pretty interesting effect.  It features a very basic tessellation pattern composed only of black and white crosses.  The crosses take turns rotating a quarter turn with the black crosses rotating counter-clockwise and the white crosses rotating clockwise.  The overall effect is very […]