Surreal amputations and the illusion of absence in the arts of magic and photography

Abstract

Both the art of photography and the art of magic are replete with surreal body illusions. In this short note, we illustrate how many of these illusions can be understood as variants of the illusion of absence, in which the space behind an occluder is experienced as compellingly empty.

How to Cite this Article

Ekroll, E., Forster, P-P., Szymanski, D., & Van Lier, R. (2026). Surreal amputations and the illusion of absence in the arts of magic and photography. i-Perception, 17(1), 1–4. https://doi.org/10.1177/20416695261425464

In Figure 1A, a young woman sticks her head out from behind another, yet we have a strangely compelling impression that there is only a head without a body to go with it. Thus, the truth of the situation (Figure 1B) is contradicted by our immediate visual experience, which makes the photo an interesting ‘visual joke’ (Parovel & Guidi, 2015). Similarly, in Figure 1C, we have the strangely compelling impression that the young man is legless, although his legs are merely stretched out behind him through a hole in his shirt (Figure 1D).

Figure 1.

The picture in panel A evokes the curious impression of a head without a body, although the body belonging to the head is simply hidden behind the other woman (panel B). Similarly, the picture in panel C evokes the curious impression that the young man is legless, although his legs are simply hidden behind the front of his shirt. Photos in panels A and B by David Szymanski, after Eikoh Hosoe's Man and Woman.

The ‘bodyless head’ illusion in Figure 1A was used by Eikoh Hosoe (1933–2024) in his photograph Man and Woman #20 from 1960, where “the upper torso of a man […] cradles a woman's head, floating in the void as if disembodied” (Bourland, 2022, p. 82). The “legless torso” illusion in Figure 1C stems from the art of stage magic. It is a simple reconstruction of Dr. Lynn's Thauma illusion (Garenne, 1886).

The illusions in Figure 1 are just two of many intriguing illusions from the arts of photography and magic, which have in common that body parts seem to be missing, although they are simply occluded—either by other objects or people in the foreground or by the model's own body or clothing. Many of these illusions can be understood as variants of the illusion of absence (Ekroll et al., 2017; Forster et al., 2025), which can be seen in Figure 2. Note how difficult it is to imagine that the pieces of fruit in Figure 2B are really hidden behind the violet occluder (Figure 2A). Theoretically, both the apparent absence of the pieces of fruit in Figure 2 and the apparent absence of the bodies in Figure 1 can be explained by appealing to the principle of generic views (e.g., Albert, 2001).

Figure 2.

Demonstration of the illusion of absence. Note how difficult it is to imagine that the pieces of fruit in panel B can be hidden behind the violet occluder in panel A, although this is indeed the case.

The key idea here is that the visual system avoids interpretations that would imply large qualitative changes in the retinal image with small changes of viewpoint. Thus, rather than assuming that the head in Figure 1A has a body, which would imply a large qualitative change (from just a head to head-and-body) with small changes of viewpoint, the visual system prefers to assume that there is no body belonging to the head. Similarly, rather than assuming that large parts of the young man in Figure 1C are hidden behind the front of the shirt, the visual system prefers to assume that the space behind the visible “torso” is empty.

The illusion of the bodyless head (Figure 1A) can be plausibly attributed to the generic view principle, but the lack of local cues to completion behind the other body is probably also important. Note how the “bodyless head” in (Figure 1A) is positioned such that there are no local cues to good continuation of the neck behind the occluding person that would support amodal completion (van Lier & Gerbino, 2015).

Previously, it has been argued that the illusion of absence is of central importance in many magic tricks where things seemingly appear out of nowhere or vanish into thin air (Ekroll et al., 2017) and in many tricks where things seem to magically levitate (Øhrn et al., 2019). It has also been argued that the illusion of absence may be involved in traffic accidents (Ekroll et al., 2021). Furthermore, many works of art, such as the abovementioned Man and Woman #20 by Eikoh Hosoe, Dr. Duanus’ Famous Magic Act (1996) by Duane Michals, or Self-portrait, Jamestown, Rhode Island (1974) by Arno Rafael Minkkinen (https://www.arnorafaelminkkinen.com/1970-1979), suggest that the illusion of absence aids photographers in creating an intriguing sense of the surreal by suggesting that large or even essential parts of a body are absent.

Besides being intriguing, photographs such as those in Figure 1 often have an amusing quality. The unusual and odd perceptual outcomes in panels A and C obviously conflict with our knowledge of what bodies usually look like. This initial conflict may be resolved by our knowledge system offering an interpretation that no longer includes the unusual outcome, but instead provides a possible explanation involving normal bodies (panels B and D). This arguably accounts for the mirth triggered (Suls, 1972), but does not dispel the illusory appearance. That is, seeing and knowing diverge into two different, yet persistent interpretations of the situation. In stage magic, however, the situation is typically different as magicians usually (but not always, see Kuhn, 2022) ensure that the spectators remain unable to imagine the actual situation. When the spectator fails to imagine the secret explanation of the trick, a sense of wonder and awe is typically evoked instead of a sense of mirth. Therefore, when the illusion of absence is at play in stage magic, the perception–cognition balance is often different from that in photographs, such as in Figure 1. However, there are exceptions, since this balance depends crucially on whether the spatial arrangement is clear to the observer. For example, in the case of Minkinnen's photo, the understanding of the actual situation is hard to develop, leaving the observer in a state of wonder over the seemingly impossible body depicted. Kwitney (1978) would have us believe that Minkinnen's photo is unmanipulated, but that is downright impossible, is it not?

On a more general note, considering the intersection between the arts of magic and photography raises a plethora of intriguing questions for future interdisciplinary research, such as how photographers can capture illusions of impossibility, which are characteristic of magical experiences, in a still picture, or how the aesthetic and emotional value of impossibility depends on the medium and the possibilities for manipulating it. How would, for instance, the aesthetic appreciation of photos such as Minkinnen's depend on the viewers’ knowledge about how they come into effect? Any tricks involved?