The Best illusion of the Year Contest
January 1, 2022 7:43 PM Subscribe
The Best illusion of the Year Contest "The Best illusion of the Year Contest is a celebration of the ingenuity and creativity of the world’s premier illusion research community. Contestants from all around the world submitted novel illusions, and an international panel of judges rated them and narrowed them to the TOP TEN."
Slime hand! That's a really cool way to update that hand experiment.
posted by freethefeet at 8:16 PM on January 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by freethefeet at 8:16 PM on January 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
#1 is novel for sure (illusions on both sides!) but the fact it was made with markers and their line weight isn't consistent meant that it wouldn't come close to passing a Fool Us test with Penn and Teller
posted by thecjm at 10:06 PM on January 1, 2022
posted by thecjm at 10:06 PM on January 1, 2022
A joy as always but am I the only one for whom the Waiting Room illusion er didn’t?
posted by fallingbadgers at 11:51 PM on January 1, 2022
posted by fallingbadgers at 11:51 PM on January 1, 2022
The Double Rings one is so cool, I know exactly what's going to happen, but it still happens anyhow.
posted by vasi at 12:06 AM on January 2, 2022
posted by vasi at 12:06 AM on January 2, 2022
I was really impressed by the 2nd one, the room was feeling a bit creepy and it turned out there was a reason why!
posted by polymodus at 3:06 AM on January 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by polymodus at 3:06 AM on January 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
I'm always happy to see these come up here. This year's crop is my favourite.
posted by brachiopod at 3:21 AM on January 2, 2022
posted by brachiopod at 3:21 AM on January 2, 2022
The changing room totally got me, and I was flabbergasted by how much it changed! No doubt because my eye was darting back and forth looking for some sign of change, never resting anywhere long enough to actually see a change. After you view it once it’s fun to scrub the video back and forth so you can see the changes sped up.
I’m not sure why the crocs illusion was a winner when it was an admitted retread of well-known viral images? Give that spot to slime hand!
I also really dug the cityscape and colossus. Great cosmic horror vibe.
posted by ejs at 5:07 AM on January 2, 2022 [4 favorites]
I’m not sure why the crocs illusion was a winner when it was an admitted retread of well-known viral images? Give that spot to slime hand!
I also really dug the cityscape and colossus. Great cosmic horror vibe.
posted by ejs at 5:07 AM on January 2, 2022 [4 favorites]
Oh wow the waiting room really shocked me. I didn't see anything change! (Also I barely got any sleep last night; I'll blame it on that...however the double rings didn't work for me at all -- they were the same both times.)
posted by BlahLaLa at 5:07 AM on January 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by BlahLaLa at 5:07 AM on January 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
The Changing Room Illusion is an example of “graduate change blindness,” a phenomenon in which observers are unable to notice changes to the world around them when those changes occur gradually.
I see what you did there.
posted by chavenet at 5:42 AM on January 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
I see what you did there.
posted by chavenet at 5:42 AM on January 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
The rings don't work for me, weirdly - I think I fried that particular lobe by playing with graphics too much before my brain was fully formed... Oh well, at least I can switch between the alternative rotations by saying "shazam" :p
The slime hand looks awesome! Makes me want to actually try it... Until then, it's just someone else reacting to the illusion. Convincingly though! Must find some slime.
Other than that, I feel like this year there are too many demos of carefully designed 2D objects that are carefully designed 2D objects.
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 6:05 AM on January 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
The slime hand looks awesome! Makes me want to actually try it... Until then, it's just someone else reacting to the illusion. Convincingly though! Must find some slime.
Other than that, I feel like this year there are too many demos of carefully designed 2D objects that are carefully designed 2D objects.
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 6:05 AM on January 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
There are way too many perspective tricks in this batch, which to me are just cheap tricks. The double ring is the only one that I feel should be in a top 10 list.
posted by ymgve at 7:16 AM on January 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by ymgve at 7:16 AM on January 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
Agreed. Lots of these are designed to fool cameras, not eyes, and fall apart completely if you have binocular vision.
posted by Hatashran at 7:24 AM on January 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Hatashran at 7:24 AM on January 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
Obligatory GOB Bluth Quote:
Illusions, Michael. A trick is something a whore does for money... or candy.posted by deadaluspark at 8:02 AM on January 2, 2022 [5 favorites]
These are always cool, but is the waiting room one really an illusion? Like, if things changing imperceptibly slowly is an illusion, then maybe next year's award can be given to continental drift? Wait, does this mean time is an illusion?
posted by oulipian at 8:24 AM on January 2, 2022
posted by oulipian at 8:24 AM on January 2, 2022
Wait, does this mean time is an illusion?
"Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so."posted by deadaluspark at 8:30 AM on January 2, 2022 [3 favorites]-Douglas Adams
Double ring didn’t work for me either maybe I’m doing something wrong?
posted by St. Peepsburg at 8:47 AM on January 2, 2022
posted by St. Peepsburg at 8:47 AM on January 2, 2022
Like, if things changing imperceptibly slowly is an illusion, then maybe next year's award can be given to continental drift?
Though it wasn’t imperceptibly slowly, it changed over only 45 seconds or so! If the continents could go from Pangea to their current configuration in 45 seconds without anyone realizing it, that would be a great illusion. But the 7 billion cases of whiplash might give up the game.
posted by ejs at 11:38 AM on January 2, 2022
Though it wasn’t imperceptibly slowly, it changed over only 45 seconds or so! If the continents could go from Pangea to their current configuration in 45 seconds without anyone realizing it, that would be a great illusion. But the 7 billion cases of whiplash might give up the game.
posted by ejs at 11:38 AM on January 2, 2022
The one with the sparkles that turn into shapes really seems cool to me.
posted by jacquilynne at 12:37 PM on January 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by jacquilynne at 12:37 PM on January 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
Oh yay, I love this tradition. The Emergent City Flyby with Colossus was my favorite. (Also, Slime Hand worked too well on me; I'm obviously not even involved and I'm bracing myself and protecting my hand.)
posted by mixedmetaphors at 12:50 PM on January 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by mixedmetaphors at 12:50 PM on January 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
I have watched the double rings five times in a row now, and my brain won't make them do anything but pretend to be a pair of swish swish washing machine agitators regardless of whether they overlap or not. Didn't get even one 360° spin out of either of them regardless of how hard I tried to let that happen.
The chess queen one was my favourite, which perhaps tells me it's time to revise the strength of my reading glasses again.
posted by flabdablet at 1:56 PM on January 2, 2022
The chess queen one was my favourite, which perhaps tells me it's time to revise the strength of my reading glasses again.
posted by flabdablet at 1:56 PM on January 2, 2022
I get "This content is blocked. Contact site owner."
I'm sad.
However, I need to do slime hand.
posted by BlueHorse at 5:36 PM on January 2, 2022
I'm sad.
However, I need to do slime hand.
posted by BlueHorse at 5:36 PM on January 2, 2022
In fact, if the rings are holed, they no longer necessarily appear to rotate back and forth
Yeah, no. I first theorized that they're still 180 degrees b/c they represented it with a magic black section that is suspended in midair. Like, obviously there's a complete ring there, just painted part black and part white!
But upon reading how some people never see 360 degrees, I rewatched it, and the 360 degree effect was gone. Maybe seeing the 180 degree rings once caused my brain to snap to that position, and now I know that a pair of rings can only rotate 180 degrees and then reverse.
...
After typing the above, I watched a third time, and I got the 360 degrees back. It might have been helped by consciously following one edge of the ring as it traced an imaginary circle.
posted by polecat at 5:52 PM on January 2, 2022
Yeah, no. I first theorized that they're still 180 degrees b/c they represented it with a magic black section that is suspended in midair. Like, obviously there's a complete ring there, just painted part black and part white!
But upon reading how some people never see 360 degrees, I rewatched it, and the 360 degree effect was gone. Maybe seeing the 180 degree rings once caused my brain to snap to that position, and now I know that a pair of rings can only rotate 180 degrees and then reverse.
...
After typing the above, I watched a third time, and I got the 360 degrees back. It might have been helped by consciously following one edge of the ring as it traced an imaginary circle.
posted by polecat at 5:52 PM on January 2, 2022
The Crocs and Socks one is the one that doesn't work on me. But I'm, you know, almost completely color blind, so... not super surprising.
posted by kyrademon at 6:00 PM on January 2, 2022
posted by kyrademon at 6:00 PM on January 2, 2022
The rings don't work for me AT ALL. I can consciously switch all three versions from 360 to 180 and none of them have a strong tendency one way or the other.
Crocks and Socks "works" in the sense that when they photograph something in green light I don't see its color correctly, but I don't see any sort of illusion there. I think they took the "dress" illusion so far (by using a type of light that nobody sees in the real world ever) that it no longer makes sense, and I think any reasonable person would answer "grey" to the first question.
Emergent city / Colossus was my favorite.
posted by mmoncur at 11:39 PM on January 2, 2022
Crocks and Socks "works" in the sense that when they photograph something in green light I don't see its color correctly, but I don't see any sort of illusion there. I think they took the "dress" illusion so far (by using a type of light that nobody sees in the real world ever) that it no longer makes sense, and I think any reasonable person would answer "grey" to the first question.
Emergent city / Colossus was my favorite.
posted by mmoncur at 11:39 PM on January 2, 2022
Maybe the rings only work if you want to be hypnotized.
A variation of the room one has fooled me on TV before, but for this one my computer couldn't keep up so the playback was stuttery and it gave the game away.
posted by The genius who rejected Anno's budget proposal. at 5:56 AM on January 5, 2022
A variation of the room one has fooled me on TV before, but for this one my computer couldn't keep up so the playback was stuttery and it gave the game away.
posted by The genius who rejected Anno's budget proposal. at 5:56 AM on January 5, 2022
"The Best illusion of the Year Contest is a celebration of the ingenuity and creativity of the world’s premier illusion research community."
Is it, though? Or is it actually...the annual conference of the North American Association of Industrial Lubricant Manufacturers, Midwest Region? Bamboozled again!
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 8:29 AM on January 5, 2022 [1 favorite]
Is it, though? Or is it actually...the annual conference of the North American Association of Industrial Lubricant Manufacturers, Midwest Region? Bamboozled again!
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 8:29 AM on January 5, 2022 [1 favorite]
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