2024 First prize

Saleeta Qadir and Bernhard Egger- The Static Spin
Country: Germany
Author´s description: This illusion creates the perception of 3D motion in a still by subtly shifting the edges or contours. These directed image tweaks create the sensation of movement without anything actually moving. We enhance the illusion by adding depth information generated by AI, which alters how fast each section of the image moves depending on how far it is. This transforms a flat image into a lively, three-dimensional one. With just a change in a few variables, you can control the speed and direction of the illusion. It’s an example of motion without anything actually moving.

2024 Second prize

Duška Milosavljević – Dollusion
Country: Serbia
Author´s description: Dollusion is an illusion of visual modality, a novel variant of forced perspective. We can see a girl standing in a doll box. One might think that she is trapped in a life-size doll box. However, what confuses the viewers is the young man who approaches the box not only from the sides but also from the back. How is this possible? The secret is in the mirror placed on the front side of the box in which we see the reflection of the girl standing in the opposite corner of the room. To make the illusion complete, a large picture imitating the inside of the box is placed behind the girl’s back. And to spice it up, the man drops a small flower behind the mirror, and an identical large flower is passed to the girl from above by the third person not visible to the viewer. “Dollusion“ is pretty confusing at first when the brain believes what it sees, right?

2024 Third prize

Hiroaki Hamanaka, Ryohei Miki, Kyota Yamamoto – Tri-form Prism
Country: Japan
Author´s description: We created this video as part of a university seminar project. Inspired by Sugihara’s “ambiguous cylinder,” which appears to have different shapes when viewed from two directions, we decided to create a prism that appears to have different shapes when viewed from three directions. That is our Tri-form Prism.

Kokichi Sugihara – Circular Parade Generated by Half-Body Objects
Country: Japan
Author´s description: My object looks like a dog, but it translates into a front mirror instead of turning around. Hence, the head half creates the tail half in the mirror and the tail half creates the head half in the mirror. The object also gives the left-right reversal illusion in the side mirror, and this property is inherited by the half bodies. So, two such half bodies and two mirrors together create four full bodies forming a circular sequence with a uniform orientation. This illusion does not disappear even if we change the viewpoint in a certain area.

Wang Hua – Oriental way
Country: China
Author´s description: This installation demonstrates a closed-loop, multi-level staircase structure capable of creating the illusion of continuous ascent or descent. While visually deceptive, this structure is fully functional at full scale and allows real-world human interaction. The visual effect simulates an endless climbing experience.

David Phillips – Opponent Drifting Heads in a tessellation
Country: UK
Author´s description: A moving object, seen against a stationary background, can sometimes appear motionless whilst the background appears to move. In this movie the viewer selects between two opposed directions of illusory induced movement of this kind. The outlines of the tessellating pattern of interlocking left and right-facing heads are stationary. Only the textures within the heads move. The textures are identical in every head, except that they are rotated 180 o in one set of heads. The heads facing one way then appear to move, whilst the other heads form an apparently stationary background. Either head may be the one selected to move, but the selection can ‘flip’.

Tatsuaki Kamoi – InfiniFlow Mirror
Country: Japan
Author´s description: The “InfiniFlow Mirror” is an innovative infinity mirror that uniquely allows light to flow in the depth direction. Traditional infinity mirrors create the illusion of endless light sources through reflective effects. However, when multiple light sources activate sequentially, their mirrored images reverse direction, preventing light from flowing in depth. The “InfiniFlow Mirror” overcomes this limitation, enabling novel visual expressions. It achieves this by utilizing shaped grooves on the wall surface to separate normal and inverted images.

Štěpán Wilkus – Reverse-phi spinning top
Country: Czech Republic
Author´s description: The illusion creates an apparent motion from a craftfully prepared still image by changing the polarization angle of the spinning top. By creating the image from variously rotated polarization filters, it is possible to change the brightness and colour of individual parts and thus create the perceived rotation of the ring. Adding birefringent materials, such as plastic foils, can even turn the image from black and white to a fully saturated colour pallette. The implementaion of a spinning top puts a “spin” on the reverse phi illusion as the illustrating illusion moves to the real world and makes it interactive, haptic and fun.

Bennett Haselton – Impossible Spin
Country: USA
Author´s description: The 3D-printed shape uses tunnels to create an animated illusion. Each tunnel is only visible when pointed directly at the viewer’s eye, so the tunnels can be arranged within the shape to create a series of dots that appear in different places when the shape is rotated. In this case the tunnels are arranged to create the illusion of a single moving in the opposite direction from how the shape is actually being rotated.

Olivier Redon and Chloe Redon – Transparent Cube
Country: USA
Author´s description: At first glance, this cube seems to be transparent and floating in mid-air but that perception doesn’t reflect its true physical structure. What you’re experiencing is a carefully crafted optical illusion. The cube consists of two distinct components:
The rear section (pink) is anamorphic intentionally distorted so that, when viewed from a specific
angle, your brain interprets it as a normal shape seen from the front.
The front section (a black frame) uses forced perspective to enhance the illusion of depth and
transparency.
Together, these contrasting visual cues one based on anamorphic distortion, the other on forced
perspective combine to produce a powerful illusion. The brain flips between seeing concavity and
convexity, transparency and solidity, creating a mesmerizing visual paradox.