Frédéric Lebain's real world collages

Over at the Imaginary Foundation blog, amazingly surreal photos by French artist Frédéric Lebain who superimposes his photographs on top of the real world.

• [Pixel]

  Even cooler, try the Looking into the Past LJ community, old photos superimposed on their current counterparts.

  Some examples (none mine):
  http://www.flickr.com/photos/iagoarchangel/3937741273/in/pool-lookingintothepast/

  http://www.flickr.com/photos/uwgbadmissions/3839520625/in/pool-lookingintothepast/

  http://www.flickr.com/photos/jasonepowell/3749639425/in/pool-lookingintothepast/

• [Anonymous]

  CLOAK OF INVISIBILITY +2! YA!

• [Chundermutton]

  It’s like those people in the pokemon games! The ninja ones!

• [endymion]

  I happened to like these quite a bit, but, diamondbach, I appreciate, and generally totally agree with, your point.

• [petezombie]

  I think diamondbach is being a tad harsh on Lebain’s work. The idea was already done by Magritte with his Human Condition pieces but Lebain’s use of photos instead of paint takes the idea into a very interesting direction. Maybe someone else has done this with photos I’m not sure but I don’t think its fair to completely dismiss the spectacular quality of these pieces and regardless of whether or not the idea is original I’m still mystified with Lebain’s results.

• [petezombie]

  And what do you define as “textbook surrealism?”

  We could look at Breton’s original manifesto, however people like Dali and Breton were incredibly elitist and had a very specific take on surrealism. And just because Man Rays work was eventually considered too abstract for people like Breton and Dali I would not consider their take on surrealism any more valid than Man Rays even if they did originate the movement.

  I would still consider films like ‘Seashell and the Clergymen’ or ‘Blood of the Poet’ important surrealist films even though Breton and Dali despised these films and heavily criticized them.

  Maybe I’m going on a tangent but I still think the surrealist impulses in works by people like Man Ray or Lebain are just as significant as the more ‘textbook’ takes on surrealism.

• [Anonymous]

  http://gizmodo.com/5397102/liu-bolin-creates-slowest-least-practical-invisibility-cloak-ever

  http://gizmodo.com/5397839/more-low+tech-invisibility-cloaks-this-time-in-nyc

• [Antinous / Moderator]

  Sock puppet removed. Sorry for the orphaned comments.

• [brassandlace]

  Nice!

• [Anonymous]

  I am ninja!