Op art

Super Optical Illusions

Gianni Sarcone
The outside world is mediated through our sense organs, so what we perceive and feel are just representations of reality. The only things we cannot doubt are our inner emotions: we cannot doubt that we are happy, sad, in love, or in grief, when such states apply. The only other thing we cannot doubt is… to doubt!

Super Optical Illusions (aka Xtreme Illusions 2) is a children book project I enjoyed to make three years ago for the publishers “Carlton Books” [amazon.co.uk], “National Geographic Kids” [amazon.com] and “Ça m’intéresse” [amazon.fr]. It looks really fantastic and my pictures are large to enjoy the details! It is a family book that will encourage the young reader to explore the mysteries that lie right inside our own minds (including the key scientific concepts of perspective and perception).

Super Optical Illusion

Book Cover

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Flying Gothic Bat

Gianni Sarcone

A new kinoptic design taken from my book “Extreme Illusions 2”.

Kinoptic designs are optical illusions where a static image appears to be moving due to the cognitive effects of interacting color contrasts and shape position. The essence of Kinoptic Art is actually to play with our optic nerves, to surprise and create the illusion of colors, dimensions or motion. Op Artist uses a palette of elements like blank spaces, XOR spaces, interspaces, interferences, space tiling and geometric patterns. Precision is also important in my creative processes: a small change in an Kinoptic Art picture can strongly modify or negate a visual effect.

The bat in the picture below seems to flutter, move and/or expand. Moreover, if you stare for a while at it and close your eyes, you will see a smaller white bat appearing to be painted on the insides of your closed eye lids.

bat illusion

You can see more samples of my kinetic optical art on Smithsonian Magazine.