"The most important of the all-too-human functions of consultants is to sanctify and communicate opinion. Like ministers of information, consultants condense the message, smooth out the dissonances, unify the rhetoric, and then repeat and amplify it ad nauseam through the client's rank and file. The chief message to be communicated is that you will be expected to work much harder than you ever have before and your chances of losing your job are infinitely greater than you ever imagined."

If you've ever known a management consultant, this explains why they always seem to have that "outrageously unjustified level of self-confidence." A fascinating insider's look into the anthropology of business consulting -- Masters of Illusion: The Great Management Consultancy Swindle
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese on Sep 16, 2009 - 76 comments

The American Hologram We suffer under a mass national hallucination. Americans, regardless of income or social position, now live in a culture entirely perceived inside a self-referential media hologram of a nation and world that does not exist. Our national reality is staged and held together by media, chiefly movie and television images. We live in a “theater state.”
posted by idixon on Apr 23, 2009 - 207 comments

Jean Baptiste André - Movement and Illusion. My favorite. One more.
posted by lazaruslong on Mar 28, 2009 - 9 comments

Andreas Aronsson makes interesting impossible figures, documents the process, and philosophizes. Via lines and colors and Neatorama, where Aronsson shows up to call himself "an Oscar Reutersvärd ripoff." Reutersvärd is often credited as the founder of the impossible figure. [more inside]
posted by mediareport on Jan 28, 2009 - 12 comments

If I Were You: Perceptual Illusion of Body Swapping. Expanding on previous experiments, researchers discover how to induce a "body-swap" illusion, whereby subjects perceive the body of another as if it were their own.
posted by homunculus on Dec 4, 2008 - 22 comments

Art as Visual Research: Art and neuroscience combine in creating fascinating examples of illusory motion.
posted by homunculus on Nov 18, 2008 - 7 comments

Of Jock Straps and Conspiracy Theories. A new study looks at how lacking control increases the tendency for magical thinking and illusory pattern perception. [Via]
posted by homunculus on Oct 5, 2008 - 87 comments

The Mighty Optical Illusions website contains a ton of things to mess with your visual cortex, from 3D chalk drawings to impossible objects; spot-the-object games, tests, and the just plain spooky, among many other categories. Or you can just keep hitting the Random Illusion button until you lose yourself.
posted by not_on_display on Sep 8, 2008 - 8 comments

The Magic Hour: The Roy Sterling Story.
posted by bunnytricks on Apr 21, 2008 - 8 comments

Surreal photographic Foodscapes by photographer Carl Warner. Strawberry hot air balloons, towers of cheese, potato boulders, green pea boats on seas of salmon, spice roads, and sugar beaches populate these intricate and luscious scenes. More dishy foodscapes (the plate rainbow = ♥!) and other wonderful visual tricks at his Flash site in the "Fotographics" section (look for the fabulous forest of boots and the white cotton winter wonderland!). [more inside]
posted by taz on Feb 2, 2008 - 28 comments

Holophonic sound is an audio recording technique which operates on a principle similar to Holography. The result has been reported to be realistic and life-like three dimensional sounding audio recordings. [more inside]
posted by sambosambo on Dec 13, 2007 - 34 comments

Atom. -- The Clash of the Titans -- The Key to the Cosmos -- The Illusion of Reality
posted by empath on Nov 24, 2007 - 20 comments

See For Yourself - Purves Lab's optical illusions web page with empirical explanations of familiar and unfamiliar illusions.
posted by nthdegx on Nov 16, 2007 - 6 comments

Is the dancer spinning clockwise or counterclockwise? An optical illusion. [more inside]
posted by painquale on Oct 8, 2007 - 133 comments

Virtual Out-of-Body Experience. Using two procedures to deliberately scramble a person's visual and tactile senses, neuroscientists are able to induce "out-of-body" experiences in people. The effect is the same as the 'rubber hand illusion', but extends the effect to the whole body instead of just one limb (you can try the hand illusion for yourself).
posted by homunculus on Aug 24, 2007 - 11 comments

Garbage + illumination = art? Various artists carefully pile rubbish on a gallery floor, or meticulously assemble a collection of ordinary items, plug in a light source, and create incredibly detailed and surprising shadows on the wall. Meanwhile, blog commenters cry "Fake!" and "Photoshop!". I guess they didn't see any of the Quicktime movies of Shigeo Fukuda linked here.
posted by maudlin on Jun 20, 2007 - 14 comments

"Illusion is the first of all pleasures"
posted by MetaMonkey on Nov 7, 2006 - 12 comments

Your daily dose of perception-bending. Stare at the center of this video (wmv or flash) for a minute or two then look away from the screen at your surroundings. You'll experience an interesting and somewhat disconcerting effect. Not appropriate for anyone prone to headaches or seizures.
posted by brain_drain on Aug 28, 2006 - 51 comments

Carnegie Mellon researchers have created a program that can automatically generate a 3-D model from a single photograph, using machine learning. Take a look at this high-res comparison of original and generated images, also demonstration animations and downloadable videos (with executables). [via /. see also: a little on human 3d perception at everything2, groovy dragon illusion]
posted by MetaMonkey on Jun 14, 2006 - 42 comments

An audio illusion called the tritone paradox is based on Shepard Tones, a finite self-similar sequence of tones that seem to contiually rise or fall in pitch. Diana Deutch has found that how you percieve these illusions can be strikingly different from person to person and that most people have some form of pefect pitch.
posted by ozomatli on Jun 14, 2006 - 42 comments

The Death of Perspective. Among the greatest achievements of the renaissance artists was the perfection of the art of perspective: Giving the appearance of depth to a flat surface. Felice Varini uses perspective to do the opposite.
posted by empath on Jun 9, 2006 - 38 comments

Mr Angry & Mrs Calm. This illusion will BLOW YOUR MIND.
posted by smackfu on Oct 25, 2005 - 42 comments

hand paintings by Guido Daniele that apparently are not photoshopped; 3D sidewalk art using clever long-distance perspective; and some cool art samples created by hand or mouth, from paralyzed folks of The Association of Mouth and Foot Painting Artists.
posted by ember on Oct 17, 2005 - 15 comments

Masters of Deception "There are a number of incredible artistic works featured in Masters of Deception, which require movement to appreciate their full impact. Additionally, I had in my possession various interviews with some of the book's featured artists that I wanted to share with my readership. Unfortunately, the publisher was unwilling to produce a CD to accompany the book. I have created this web site, therefore, to augment and enhance the reader's experience by presenting those works and interviews that I could not present in book form." Al Seckel. enjoy.
posted by hortense on Aug 19, 2005 - 3 comments

For the sake of your sanity, for five minutes this week forget the memos, the autopsies, the celebrity verdicts, and the rest. Go outside and look at the full moon, which will hang in the sky at its lowest point in 18 years over the next three nights, says NASA, creating the "summer moon illusion." If you're a US resident, calculate your local moonrise time here.
posted by digaman on Jun 19, 2005 - 26 comments

Rapid Afterimage Optical Illusion
posted by srboisvert on Jun 6, 2005 - 38 comments

Julians Beever draws on sidewalks with chalk. His drawings range from insects to commercial objects to self portraits. I don't know if he designs them on a his laptop, but as with LCD screens, viewing angle is critically important.
posted by alms on Jun 4, 2005 - 29 comments

The Human Condition. A Mac-based homage to Magritte. [via]
posted by Slithy_Tove on Mar 29, 2005 - 20 comments

Interesting Optical Illusion - and explanation. {It's just a single page with an image. Go on, click it!}
posted by dobbs on Nov 13, 2004 - 24 comments

Utterly terrifying! [Windows Media, from Grand Illusions]
posted by Pretty_Generic on Nov 13, 2004 - 15 comments

Red and green dots have never been so interesting. At least to a geek like me. I love it when my brain plays tricks on me.
posted by jeremy on May 21, 2004 - 33 comments

Remember the weirdness with Bush's hypnotic rainbow tie last week? Now you too can experiment with creating mesmerizing patterns on Project LITE's Moire page.
[via j-walk blog]
posted by moonbird on Apr 19, 2004 - 5 comments

The McGurk Effect
posted by knutmo on Apr 16, 2004 - 38 comments

The Thatcher Illusion (using Madonna) , the original, Bush
posted by srboisvert on Mar 21, 2004 - 25 comments

Magic, Flim-Flam, and Deceptive Practices.
posted by mokujin on Mar 12, 2004 - 17 comments

You think it's moving but it's not.
posted by xmutex on Jul 24, 2003 - 85 comments

This is the coolest optical illusion you'll ever see. Happy Friday. (Warming: .exe format, about 250k)
posted by skechada on Jan 10, 2002 - 17 comments

The Oregon Vortex is a nice place to visit if you enjoy places where things roll uphill and things change size base on their position. Many have tried to figure it out. Physicist John Lister spent forty years there only to burn all his notes.

When is someone going to let the vortex genie out?
posted by john on Feb 20, 2001 - 40 comments