(This is pretty much an account of what I'm trying to do with magic. It probably won't benefit the community as a whole, and it may even seem a little boisterous or self-indulgent. But then again, maybe you guys will find it interesting: I love hearing other peoples' theories and practices 
)
Ever since I tried to make my magic as art, I haven't been performing as much. At all, really. And my list of effects has gone down - way, way down.
I'll be honest, there weren't many there to begin with. But now I'm re-building my arsenal from the ground up, attempting to use audience involvement as much as possible. In order to be considered, an effect has to involve the spectator in either a unique or very "hands-on" way (Your Personal Safe is a coins across involving the spectator, for example. Stigmata has the spectator grab your wrist and uses their very thoughts). Either that, or it has to be just a fun piece of strange. That's the criteria I'm setting - visual, flashy, and involving the audience as much as possible. Aside from that, I don't care, as long as it does those things.
In case you're wondering, here's what I've got lined up:
Also, with much help from the Bunny Boy Collective forums, I'm about 95% towards completion of turning water into snow. In a nutshell: borrow a water bottle, give it a shake, and all the water visually morphs into a flaky, powdery snow. No liquid in sight. (That's another thing - I'm inventing a lot more! It's so much fun to invent.)
Anyway, since I'm not really performing right now, I've had time to think on where I'm at in magic, and attempting to utilize it as an art form. The formula I'm using is this:
- If people find it beautiful and emotionally involving, they likely consider a painting or a performance as art. (Not many people praise art they don't like or don't care about)
- I have to make the effect beautiful and/or emotionally involving. No easy task! However, I'm hoping to hunt out people like myself who find the odd, strange, and weird in life, beautiful. People who appreciate the wonder in a random act of astonishment. The visual and weird nature of the tricks should take care of the beauty part (I hope).
- In order to emotionally involve people, I want to invest them into the trick. Borrow their stuff, read their thoughts, let them help out. Make it more interactive. Watching a performance becomes something else entirely when you're suddenly participating as well. The general idea here is to eliminate myself from the performance as much as possible.
- Making a performance that strikes people as beautiful, has them invest part of themselves in it, and remember it, may just be considered art to them. If I do this right, I may be making art.
I'll leave the "Is Magic Art?" debates for another thread (or hopefully never again, we have way too many of those). As for the "why", why make it art... well, why not?
Most people don't set out specifically to make art. They set out to express themselves, and other people tend to appreciate it and label it as art. This is what I'd like to do - express myself and my beliefs through what I perform. Let's see what I believe: I believe that strange things are beautiful (check!). I believe people as a whole should be united, need to be a community (can I draw a crowd? If so, check!). I believe people should be able to express themselves entirely and fully (audience involvement - check!). I also believe in several other assorted liberal left-wing funtime stuff, and I think I can translate that through the performance in similar ways.
There's also the effects. I'll warn you, this next section may sound pretentious or just plain silly, but give it a chance
I listened to the preview of Control, where Wayne says, at the end, "We all have more Control over our lives than we'd like to admit", or something to that effect, and I found that the pulse stop, heart stop, and watch stop was a beautiful illustration of that - how we as people CAN take control of ourselves and where we're headed. (And not only me as the performer - but the spectator as well, hence adding the For Andruzzi routine to Control). On the surface, you have a simple pulse stop. It can be presented a million ways (geek magic, mentalism, etc.) But there also seemed to be an underlying message, an actual metaphor there - how we can shape ourselves and our lives if we just try a little bit harder. If we don't give up. And you show this to the spectator - you don't say it, you demonstrate it - by controling life and death.
(Told you I'd be reading into this a bit much =P)
Also, look at Garcia's Greed. On the surface, a visual bill change - a fun routine with a funny ending. As a whole, it lightens the mood and gets everyone smiling. But can't you also see that as a metaphor for Greed itself? You make more and more and more money, and you offer the 20 to the spectators - then ask if they'd like even MORE money. They agree, and to show the ill effects of Greed, they are misled and actually end of with a lot less then what they could've had (hasn't that happened to all of us at some point?)
Whether Houchin or Garcia actually meant either of those messages, I don't know. But I interpreted them that way and want to try to present it like that without preaching morals or values to anyone - just letting the visual message appear, and let the audience interpret it themselves.
(I also think both those effects sound just plain fun)
So far, I've formed a pretty cohesive plan for making art: filter a personal message through the medium and give the spectator a chance to value it and interpret it as they please.
So that's where I'm at now. What I had been performing was not doing it for me. I had to re-invent my performance, my persona, and my acts. Every day, magic seems more and more like a futile, pointless act, because I'm not performing, and what I've set forth to do seems so epic in scope, and even downright silly at times ("You change a five dollar bill into a ten dollar bill, and you want me to call you an artist? Right.") I haven't done anything for anyone recently. My once full pockets, housing a number of effects, now contain only my wallet (and no, not even a magic wallet, just a regular one). I think to myself, I should practice this or this, but I can't find the motivation.
The transition is not an easy one. It has been rough. But I'm going to do Control, I've just finished up my Fraud pre-show work, and I'm going to perform something for someone this weekend (maybe not Control, I won't even have it then. I've got other stuff, though). Maybe sometimes, you just need the shock of experience to get motivated. Sometimes, the best way to get over writer's block is to just write anything, and see where you end up.
However, I think the change is worth it. Instead of feeling like a hoarder of secrets, I can take pride in doing something impossible. I can call myself an artist and not feel arrogant or stupid for it. I can show someone something, and change what they generally associate as magic. Maybe someone will laugh. God forbid, maybe they'll cry. Maybe they might just freak out and demand answers.
Whatever the case - I can't be the only one who finds a break from reality this refreshing. This much fun.
)Ever since I tried to make my magic as art, I haven't been performing as much. At all, really. And my list of effects has gone down - way, way down.
I'll be honest, there weren't many there to begin with. But now I'm re-building my arsenal from the ground up, attempting to use audience involvement as much as possible. In order to be considered, an effect has to involve the spectator in either a unique or very "hands-on" way (Your Personal Safe is a coins across involving the spectator, for example. Stigmata has the spectator grab your wrist and uses their very thoughts). Either that, or it has to be just a fun piece of strange. That's the criteria I'm setting - visual, flashy, and involving the audience as much as possible. Aside from that, I don't care, as long as it does those things.
In case you're wondering, here's what I've got lined up:
- Your Personal Safe
- Fraud
- Stigmata (I'm going to combine this with the upcoming Stigmata A.D. and possibly a self-levitation for a truly bizarre mentalism routine)
- Cold Reading
- Saw
- Control (buying it as soon as it hits! I'm really looking forward to this one. I'm going to tack on Luke Jermay's For Andruzzi, also)
- Counterfeit Spectator (if I can get a name from the spectator and a few seconds alone...)
- Static (can't beat an impromptu levitation )
Also, with much help from the Bunny Boy Collective forums, I'm about 95% towards completion of turning water into snow. In a nutshell: borrow a water bottle, give it a shake, and all the water visually morphs into a flaky, powdery snow. No liquid in sight. (That's another thing - I'm inventing a lot more! It's so much fun to invent.)
Anyway, since I'm not really performing right now, I've had time to think on where I'm at in magic, and attempting to utilize it as an art form. The formula I'm using is this:
- If people find it beautiful and emotionally involving, they likely consider a painting or a performance as art. (Not many people praise art they don't like or don't care about)
- I have to make the effect beautiful and/or emotionally involving. No easy task! However, I'm hoping to hunt out people like myself who find the odd, strange, and weird in life, beautiful. People who appreciate the wonder in a random act of astonishment. The visual and weird nature of the tricks should take care of the beauty part (I hope).
- In order to emotionally involve people, I want to invest them into the trick. Borrow their stuff, read their thoughts, let them help out. Make it more interactive. Watching a performance becomes something else entirely when you're suddenly participating as well. The general idea here is to eliminate myself from the performance as much as possible.
- Making a performance that strikes people as beautiful, has them invest part of themselves in it, and remember it, may just be considered art to them. If I do this right, I may be making art.
I'll leave the "Is Magic Art?" debates for another thread (or hopefully never again, we have way too many of those). As for the "why", why make it art... well, why not?
Most people don't set out specifically to make art. They set out to express themselves, and other people tend to appreciate it and label it as art. This is what I'd like to do - express myself and my beliefs through what I perform. Let's see what I believe: I believe that strange things are beautiful (check!). I believe people as a whole should be united, need to be a community (can I draw a crowd? If so, check!). I believe people should be able to express themselves entirely and fully (audience involvement - check!). I also believe in several other assorted liberal left-wing funtime stuff, and I think I can translate that through the performance in similar ways.
There's also the effects. I'll warn you, this next section may sound pretentious or just plain silly, but give it a chance
I listened to the preview of Control, where Wayne says, at the end, "We all have more Control over our lives than we'd like to admit", or something to that effect, and I found that the pulse stop, heart stop, and watch stop was a beautiful illustration of that - how we as people CAN take control of ourselves and where we're headed. (And not only me as the performer - but the spectator as well, hence adding the For Andruzzi routine to Control). On the surface, you have a simple pulse stop. It can be presented a million ways (geek magic, mentalism, etc.) But there also seemed to be an underlying message, an actual metaphor there - how we can shape ourselves and our lives if we just try a little bit harder. If we don't give up. And you show this to the spectator - you don't say it, you demonstrate it - by controling life and death.
(Told you I'd be reading into this a bit much =P)
Also, look at Garcia's Greed. On the surface, a visual bill change - a fun routine with a funny ending. As a whole, it lightens the mood and gets everyone smiling. But can't you also see that as a metaphor for Greed itself? You make more and more and more money, and you offer the 20 to the spectators - then ask if they'd like even MORE money. They agree, and to show the ill effects of Greed, they are misled and actually end of with a lot less then what they could've had (hasn't that happened to all of us at some point?)
Whether Houchin or Garcia actually meant either of those messages, I don't know. But I interpreted them that way and want to try to present it like that without preaching morals or values to anyone - just letting the visual message appear, and let the audience interpret it themselves.
(I also think both those effects sound just plain fun
)So far, I've formed a pretty cohesive plan for making art: filter a personal message through the medium and give the spectator a chance to value it and interpret it as they please.
So that's where I'm at now. What I had been performing was not doing it for me. I had to re-invent my performance, my persona, and my acts. Every day, magic seems more and more like a futile, pointless act, because I'm not performing, and what I've set forth to do seems so epic in scope, and even downright silly at times ("You change a five dollar bill into a ten dollar bill, and you want me to call you an artist? Right.") I haven't done anything for anyone recently. My once full pockets, housing a number of effects, now contain only my wallet (and no, not even a magic wallet, just a regular one). I think to myself, I should practice this or this, but I can't find the motivation.
The transition is not an easy one. It has been rough. But I'm going to do Control, I've just finished up my Fraud pre-show work, and I'm going to perform something for someone this weekend (maybe not Control, I won't even have it then. I've got other stuff, though). Maybe sometimes, you just need the shock of experience to get motivated. Sometimes, the best way to get over writer's block is to just write anything, and see where you end up.
However, I think the change is worth it. Instead of feeling like a hoarder of secrets, I can take pride in doing something impossible. I can call myself an artist and not feel arrogant or stupid for it. I can show someone something, and change what they generally associate as magic. Maybe someone will laugh. God forbid, maybe they'll cry. Maybe they might just freak out and demand answers.
Whatever the case - I can't be the only one who finds a break from reality this refreshing. This much fun.