Awesome Illusions

Burls Art is back with another creative guitar build. This time, he made a unique electric guitar with a 3D depth illusion with the same technique used to make some wooden cutting boards. Blake and his friend started by cutting maple and walnut boards into strips of varying thicknesses, then stacked, glued, and cut them into wedges to create the pattern.

This special material uses a precision-engineered lens array to bend light around you, making it look like you vanished into thin air. Crouch down behind the full-size Invisibility Shield 2.0 or cloak your entire body with the 6-foot-tall MEGASHIELD. Both roll up for easy transport, and the shield is also available in a 12″ by 7.9″ Mini size for $69.

This showy Bluetooth speaker has a cylindrical screen that displays song lyrics and other animations. The trick is a rapidly spinning LED bar that produces a persistence-of-vision illusion. Its see-through display can be viewed from any angle, and its audio system incorporates two full-range drivers and a subwoofer. Sign up to be notified of the Kickstarter launch here.

When you start to play this video, you’ll see a line bouncing around the screen. But if you pause it, the line vanishes. Chris Long explores this strange persistence of vision effect, which occurs when a line of pixels changes state between black and white. The method can also be used to share hidden text that can only be seen when the video is playing.

At first glance, you might think this was a painting of a hummingbird. But it is neither a painting nor a hummingbird. Hit play on the video, and you’ll see what we mean. Artist Thomas Deininger creates these incredible mixed media sculptures of birds, bees, and other animals that defy expectations when viewed from any angle other than straight on.

Artist M’Brick makes portraits from LEGO bricks. But rather than keeping things simple with 1×1 pixels, he uses a seemingly random assortment of parts to create depth and textures. The originals are hard to come by, but limited-edition prints are for sale at M’Brick’s Art Shop. His Frida Kahlo and Bruce Springsteen portraits are extraordinary.

The latest desk toy from the makers of the Mezmoglobe series offers up a hypnotic illusion that will have you scratching your head. Give its outer helix a spin, and it appears that its metal sphere is floating weightlessly in its center. It’s completely mechanical and uses no magnets or electricity. Choose from black, dark titanium, or silver helix designs.

We’ve all thought we saw faces in places they shouldn’t be, like buildings, outlets, and wood grain patterns. Duncan Clarke explores pareidolia, the tendency for humans to perceive faces and familiar forms where they don’t exist. Along the way, you’ll learn about other ways our brains really want us to see faces.

Many of us have seen the levitating man trick. Magician Xavier Mortimer took that idea and turned it on its side with an illusion that makes it appear that a man is floating while pushing a shopping cart. We’re guessing it was done with a rig like this to hold the guy’s body up, but we can’t figure out how they got the cart to move without visible motors.

There are some pretty cool backpacks on the market with LED screens, but this one from Yihong Technology works its visual magic differently. It uses a spinning fan blade with 510 flickering LEDs that display moving images using a persistence of vision illusion. It’s just for advertising and not carrying things, though.

Filmmaker Quek Shio recently put together a slick new office space for working on his videos. Instead of simply sharing a few still images of the setup, he used his editing skills to create a short film filled with invisible cuts and visual trickery that make it look like magic.

While it’s possible to build a hubless bicycle, it’s a mechanically complex feat. Builder The Q came up with a similar look that does away with the spokes instead, replacing them with thick polyacrylate sheets. We’re not sure how durable they are or how they affect ride quality, but it’s a really cool illusion.

Mad scientist Mike Ando aka RIUM+ created a unique display inspired by the holographic imagers in the adventure game Riven: The Sequel to Myst. His patent-pending Andotrope has a cylindrical display that spins with the turn of a crank, and displays an image that appears to follow you no matter what angle you view it from. Works great for Princess Leia, too.

Starting and keeping a fire going takes time and effort, not to mention wood. The Flameship creates a convincing illusion of fire without the dangers of a real fire. It uses computer-controlled LEDs illuminating steam vapor to produce its cool-touch flame effect. It offers five flame effect settings, and its body looks like a sculptural work of modern art.

From a flaming bubble vortex to manipulating water with sound waves to balancing coins on a strand of thread, Mr. Hacker is here to show us more than 30 simple yet effective tricks and illusions enabled by the power of physics. Kids, don’t try that balloon-swallowing trick at home.

Despite what your eyes are telling you, the blue and red LEGO space explorer minifigs in this image are the exact same size. Mathematician Henry Segerman shows how perspective and a custom 3D-printed structure produce this mind-bending optical illusion.

When you look at an old-timey barber pole, its stripes appear to spiral upward. Science educator Steve Mould shares a similar illusion designed by Ada Cohen that uses intertwined helixes to create the illusion that they’re disappearing endlessly into the top of the rig. Bottom line, spirals and helices have a way of messing with our brains.

It’s been some time since Captain Disillusion debunked a video, but this one was worth the wait. This time, he took on an illusion in which a magician appears to push a card through a glass window to an orangutan. After putting a few theories to the test, it doesn’t add up – but Cap’s sleuthing eventually reveals the truth.

Need to unwind your mind? The Wryfield Lab YouTube channel is filled with soothing visuals and soundscapes. Among their collection is this reverse video of tomatoes being sliced, resulting in the illusion that they’re being reassembled. They also unsliced some kiwi and paprika, as well as unpeeled a grapefruit.

Most of us celebrated Christmas with a real tree or a store-bought fake one. Sean Hodgins made his tree out of light. He created the electronic tree using a triangular bar rigged with LEDs that spins at high speed to create the illusion. It looks amazing, but it’s dangerous enough that he stands behind a blast shield to use it.

During an episode of Penn and Teller: Fool Us, magician Axel Adler turned up with a mind-boggling illusion we’ve never seen before. The trick: make it look like he has three legs – and you can never quite tell which ones are real and which is a fake. It’s kind of like that old cups and balls trick but you try and follow the fake leg.

Wood Season shows us how they created a chess board that looks like its playing surface is floating on water. The trick was encasing oak wood blocks in a thick bath of clear resin, then backlighting them with LEDs. A pearlescent resin backing and floating pine cones add to the effect. The set is available for sale on Etsy.

Drew Builds Stuff has an office in the basement of his parents’ house. Because of its subterranean location, it doesn’t get much light. To brighten things up, he built a window wall out of three 75″ 4K TVs, resulting in a 12-foot diagonal image. Since he can load up any video footage, he can pretend to be anywhere on Earth.