Previously we spoke with Lisa Yaszek, a Regents Professor of Science Fiction Studies at Georgia Tech, where she researches and teaches science fiction as a global language crossing centuries, continents, and cultures, who explained our never-ending fascination with optical illusions.

According to the professor, there is something inherently pleasing about the ability to perceive an image in different ways and it’s “part of our natural aptitude for learning.”

It doesn’t matter the source or the nature of the illusion, each one has captivated us since the dawn of time. “Whatever the source of our love for optical illusions, it’s fascinating to note that the desire to create optical illusions seems to be as old as humanity itself."

Historical examples of optical illusions can be found with the work of the prehistoric artists who decorated the Cave of Altima 20,000 years ago. “They used the natural bulges in the rock walls of the cave to give volume and depth to the animals they drew there; the Greek-Egyptian inventor Heron of Alexandria (10CE–70AD) engineered a device that made it look like priests could open temple doors with verbal commands; and the Airavatesvara Temple in India is covered in 800+-year-old carvings of animals that change species when viewed from different angles.”

Our renewed fascination with optical illusions is nothing surprising, says Lisa, because whenever people invent new creative or technical processes, they use them to create optical illusions. “Indeed, we’ve seen this throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries: pioneering filmmakers like George Melies drew on vaudeville stagecraft and scratched and painted on celluloid to create the first filmic special effects; Op artists Josef Albers and Bridgette Riley manipulated geometric forms on canvas to convince the eye that unreal spatial places existed,” she explained.

Today, we use digital technologies that allow us to radically transform the scale and presentation of images in sometimes truly mind-blowing ways, while other times it’s nature that plays tricks on us!