OPTICAL ILLUSIONS 2

A hands-on approach to creating visual head-spinners from agamographs to Ouchi illusions, hand shadows to forced-perspective photos.

Complementing the earlier, similarly laid-out Optical Illusions (2012), 15 spreads offer a mix of printed color or black-and-white grids of diverse sorts to stare at, flaps to lift, and instructions for creating further effects using either common materials or the punch-outs, patterns, and barred acetate sheet tucked into a pouch at the front. Leading questions (“Do you see the bright star turning clockwise?”) guide readers, while the accompanying notes name many of the illusions and sometimes their inventors and also explain how the brain is fooled into perceiving illusory shapes, relationships, or movement. The flaps and loose pieces signal limited shelf life for this in libraries or classrooms, but aside (perhaps) from several examples of anamorphic sidewalk and beach art, all of these illusions are well within the abilities of young makers to construct. The hands that model various devices and illusions and most of the rare, tiny human figures in the photos and digital paintings are light-skinned.

Larger gatherings of illusions abound, but there are few with so much to engage hands as well as eyes.