The Rencontres d’Arles photography festival offers plenty to tease and fool the eye, but “The Potemkin Village,” a project by the Austrian photographer Gregor Sailer installed in a former cathedral in the center of town, is arguably the most fraudulent of the lot. Notionally a set of architectural landscapes, shot in seven countries and three continents, it in fact exhibits places that are non-places, real estate that is also unreal (and surreal). The Swedish Harlem turns out to be a test track for self-driving cars. Why is it decorated as New York — rather than, say, Stockholm?

“I don’t know why they did that,” Mr. Sailer said with a shrug. “A little crazy.”