The photographs below look a lot like M.C. Escher’s famous ‘impossible’ prints Waterfall, Belvedere and Ascending and Descending. And yet these photographs do not depict impossible structures: they depict real lego structures these guys actually built (to see how they did it, click any of the images to reveal what they look like from a different angle).
Escher’s prints are sometimes thought to be counterexamples to Descartes’ conceivability-possibility link: arguably those prints are clear and distinct images of impossible situations. But their similarity to these photographs suggests that they could be something else entirely: viz. deceptive images of possible situations.
Thanks to Andrew Lipson for his very generous permission to showcase his work with Daniel Shiu here. All the images on this page are copyrighted and they may not be reproduced anywhere without Andrew’s permission.
“I think it’s in my basement… let me go upstairs and check.” — M.C. Escher