Theme:
OPTICAL ILLUSIONS
The story may have begun 17,000 years ago in Lascaux, where one of our ancestors painted a bull with its legs raised in a cave. An optical illusion, perhaps? Thousands of
years later, someone discovered the principle of the camera obscura, and it became clear what had happened millennia earlier. The story continued 400 years before Christ
when Plato theorized the allegory of the myth of the cave using a visual trick, namely the shadows of objects projected by a fire behind them onto the wall, again in a cave.
Another leap forward of a few thousand years: 25 photographs viewed in the space of a second and here is another optical illusion: cinema!
But what about the percentages offered by statistics that tell us two opposite realities depending on the point of view from which they are read? What about the youthful
appearance that cosmetic surgery offers us, regardless of our actual age? What about politicians who manipulate information to make us believe that everything is fine?
Despite this, however, we can still enjoy perception games that exploit the characteristics and limitations of our visual system. And we can thank the artists who show us strange worlds by creating ingenious optical illusions.
Our ignorance can also make us see things we cannot believe, but here knowledge can come to our aid. Some incredible phenomena can be explained by quantum physics, for
example, or molecular biology.
In an age that imposes lies as normality, whether they come from the media, politicians’ statements, the world of advertising, or production systems, a world of appearances distances us from a life lived fully in awareness of our choices, distances us from our autonomy of thought and from the possibility of having an impact on society.
In this review, we entrust the excursus on the thousand optical illusions of our world to satirical cartoonists, to their ability to see through X-rays, to synthesize, to make salacious or humorous judgments, to look at things in a non-conformist way, to read between the lines of apparent reality. Protected by the language of satire, which does not allow censorship and enjoys full freedom of expression, artists have the ability and the task of uncovering the Chinese boxes of appearance for us and opening our eyes, often through the power of humor.
Thanks to satirical cartoonists, the City of Trento International Satire and Humor Festival will make us more aware, more critical, and therefore more free
Conditions:
-The participation to the contest is free and opened to italian and international artists from the age of 16
-Every artist must register by filling and sending, with the artworks, the form attached to the last page of this document.
-Each author can send a maximum of three artworks, with the possibility to join both cate- gories, as long as it’s specified in the form
-The artworks must be in A4 or A3 (vertical or horizontal) and be sent in JPG or TIFF format with resolution of 300 dpi
-Every artist joining the contest takes responsability for the originality of the artworks and declares to be their author, relieving the Organization from possible requests of reim-
bursement coming, at any scale, from thirds
-Artworks that are made with AI are not admitted in the contest. The Jury has the chance to take back any prize in case the selected artwork proves to be made with AI or in the
case it has been awarded in other competitions
Prizes:
First Prize 1.000€
Second Prize 500€
Third Prize 300€
PRIZE COMICS CATEGORY
First Prize 1.000€
ALESSANDRO ALFONSI SPECIAL PRIZE 300€
Deadline:
15th June 2026
Address for sending artworks:
rassegnatrento@studioandromeda.net
