Mesmerizing Animated Optical Illusions Showing How Images Are Not Exactly What They First Appear to Be

In the beautifully animated short film “A Mind Sang” by filmmaker Vier Nev visually explores the concept of Pareidolia, the common psychological phenomenon in which the mind incorrectly perceives an unfamiliar image as a recognizable object. One such example of this phenomenon is seeing faces in inanimate objects. The mesmerizing animated vignettes within the animation show perceived human faces and bodies slipping into shadows and then disappearing into a larger picture, thus demonstrating that all is not exactly how it first appears.

A short film about perception, rebirth and transformation.

Vimeo Staff Picks spoke with Nev about the inspiration for this film.

It began with twenty drawings I had created about different cultural representations of birth and identity. I find that in my drawings I often come back to the same characters: queer couples, mothers, and, for some inexplicable reason, cats. I wondered if I could create a film that merged the stories of these characters into the same shapes and shadows. In my mind, the main challenge was to create a film where every frame would hold two different images and somehow would still be a compelling experience.