March 3, 2015

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CALL FOR ILLUSION SUBMISSIONS: THE WORLD'S 11TH ANNUAL BEST ILLUSION OF THE YEAR CONTEST

We are happy to announce the 11th edition of world's Best Illusion of the Year Contest!! Submissions are now welcome!

By Susana Martinez-Conde

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This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American


CALL FOR ILLUSION SUBMISSIONS: THE WORLD’S 11TH ANNUAL BEST ILLUSION OF THE YEARSM CONTEST

http://illusionoftheyear.com

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We are happy to announce the 11th edition of world's Best Illusion of the YearSM Contest!! Submissions are now welcome!

Starting this year, the Best Illusion of the YearSM Contest will bring the creativity of the illusion creator community all around the world. To accomplish this, the Contest will become an annual online event, in which anybody with an internet connection can participate! No matter where you live, you can participate as a contestant, and/or vote for the Top 3 winners yourself!

Contestants are invited to submit 1-minute videos featuring novel illusions (unpublished, or published no earlier than 2014) of all sensory modalities (visual, auditory, etc.), in mp4 format. The content of the 1-minute video presenting your illusion is solely up to you, and the only requirement is that it wows all viewers! Some examples include, but are not limited to, a:

  • Slide presentation, or succession of images, with a voice over (or written text, if you prefer)

  • Video of yourself describing your illusion

  • Video of your illusion, expressed in interpretative dance (just kidding –or not–, but you get the idea!)

An international panel of impartial judges will rate all the videos and narrow them down to the Top 10. Then, online voters around the world will choose their favorite illusions from the Top 10 finalists. All Top 10 finalists will receive a commemorative plaque. In addition, the Top 3 winners will receive cash prizes: $3,000 for first place; $2,000 for second place, and $1,000 for third place.

The Judge Panel will rate illusions according to:

  • Significance to our understanding of the human mind and brain

  • Simplicity of the description

  • Sheer beauty

  • Counterintuitive quality

  • Spectacularity

Submissions will be held in strict confidence by the Judge Panel and the authors/creators will retain copyright of their works. The Top 10 illusions will be posted online to allow worldwide voting. As with submitting your work to any conference, participating in the Best Illusion of the YearSM Contest does not preclude you from also submitting your work for publication elsewhere. Illusions submitted to previous editions of the Contest can be re-submitted to the 2015 Contest, as long as they meet the above requirements and were not among the Top 10 illusions in previous years.

You can send your 1-minute video to Dr. Susana Martinez-Conde via email (smart@neuralcorrelate.com) until April 1, 2015.

On behalf of the Executive Board of the Neural Correlate Society:

Jose-Manuel Alonso, Stephen Macknik, Susana Martinez-Conde, Luis Martinez, Xoana Troncoso, Peter Tse

 

Susana Martinez-Conde is a professor of ophthalmology, neurology, and physiology and pharmacology at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University in Brooklyn, N.Y. She is author of the Prisma Prize–winning Sleights of Mind, along with Stephen Macknik and Sandra Blakeslee, and of Champions of Illusion, along with Stephen Macknik.

More by Susana Martinez-Conde

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