Anyone who has used Photoshop or similar programs knows these shifting dotted lines suggest a selection has been made and, in this case, something has been deleted.

As part of a series of digital art edits, Michael Guppy effectively disappeared the focal points of these works, selecting and removing key elements (while quietly filling in their backgrounds). He simply hooks the results into looped gif files a few frames long and the effect is complete.

For those of us with even a little exposure to art history, our imaginations do the rest, completing the pictures from memory by recalling a screaming figure here, a poised Mona Lisa there and seeing the man behind the apple reappear in our heads.

Guppy has done many other pieces that play with digital culture, the internet, classics and icons, but perhaps one of his most entertaining creations can be seen in the video above, titled: The Most Viewed Image on the Internet. If you don’t ‘get it’ right away, well, just give it some time.