Here's the question: What does magic offer that no other art does?
Nothing.
What differentiates the medium of magic [from other art forms] then?
The way it looks.
Here's the question: What does magic offer that no other art does?
What differentiates the medium of magic [from other art forms] then?
What differentiates the medium of magic then? How do we define the genre?
Why don't people look at The Blaire Witch project or Orson Welles's War of the Worlds and call it magic? Why don't we look at dancers, sculptors, acrobats, martial artists and jugglers and call them magicians?
I will echo most of the sentiments offered here with one major exception;
Unlike a musical performance where it is simply repeating what you have practiced, magic includes an interaction and a 'reading' of the audience AS you perform.
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I think it's the effort to conceal the skill involved.
By the skills used. Magic uses sleight of hand, optical illusion, perception, story telling, and so on, combined. You can't even really say it's all an illusion, either, because some of it is real. They're using a different set of skills. But that doesn't stop people from calling the experience magical. For example, Michael Moschen, who did the crystal manipulations in The Labyrinth, was hired to do that job because the producers thought his act was "the most magical thing he'd ever seen". Michael Moschen is a juggler, though a very unusual one.
How many movie reviews include the word "magical"?
Magic, in and of itself, uses a particular set of skills. Other artists use some of those skills, and sometimes terms are applied incorrectly - but I genuinely don't think there's anything magic offers that is completely unique to that genre. I also don't think that matters - what matters is that the audience is satisfied by the performance.
See, here is when we run into a fundamental issue.
If something is clearly impossible, that does not make it magical. I think, in many cases, that's the easiest way to remove any possibility of magic from a performance. Humans are not stupid - we know when something isn't actually possible in most cases, and we generally will automatically assume it's done by some method we didn't notice.
On a fundamental level we, as humans, believe that everything has to fit within the rules, somehow. We may not understand the rules, but we understand that certain things just aren't really possible. That is, unless someone explains how this event happens to fit within the rules. If something is presented that clearly breaks the rules, we cannot engage with it, because we cannot relate it to anything we understand.
There's another elephant in the room that is also important to acknowledge: Our labels are meaningless.
No matter what we call something, what matters is what the audience perceives. If the two things do not line up, it doesn't resonate with the audience. We may think we're doing something magical, but if the audience thinks it's stupid, then it's stupid. We may think we're creating art, but if the audience doesn't get it, then it's just someone faffing about on stage.
So we can say "Magic is magic because it has X" but that doesn't matter. What matters is what the audience calls it.
And if the audience calls something magical, then it's magical. That's why these things are so hard to define - because we're trying to pin a definite label onto something that is a subjective experience.
I don't think that much of what I see done by a "magician" is magical or artistic. Most magicians have nothing to say, do not even seem to try to evoke an emotional response, and the show would be no different if there was no audience at all. The magician is there to show you how clever he thinks he is, and your job is to indulge his bloated ego.
Set the ego aside and focus on creating an experience for the audience and you might create some art. But there is nothing magic has that couldn't also be done with another art form. A singer/songwriter/musician who locks eyes with someone in the audience while singing about something they care about can evoke just as strong a feeling of awe and connection as any talented magician.
I'm in the "nothing" camp. It is the medium of performance.
It has the potential to be art and evoke emotion and beauty, but that potential is rarely recognized.
(Let us stipulate that we are talking about the best possible magic: Lance Burton, David Copperfield, Eugene Burger, Derren Brown, Derek Delgaudio, Ricky Jay level magic. What makes what they do unique when compared to the likes of Celine Dion, Carol King, LeBron James, Christopher Nolan, Stephen Spielberg, George Carlin or Bo Burnham ?)
I'm looking for what defines the medium. What does magic offer that no other art does?
So, the trouble here is that you seem to be asking two different questions at the same time.
"What defines the medium" is not at all necessarily what it may offer that nothing else does.
The medium is defined by the skills used to create the performance. That's on the performer's side. The performer has to use the skills of "magic" (as an umbrella category, which covers a huge amount of skills, some of which are also included in other categories) to be a magic show.
But from the audience's perspective, I don't think magic offers anything that is distinctly unique. Anything one can experience at a magic show, one can experience elsewhere from other mediums and art forms.
I think most people who call themselves magicians are really just prop comics, personally. If the performer is not offering a magical experience, it's not magic to me.
I think the original question was quite clear and it's all getting a bit pedantic. The latter question 'what does magic offer that no other medium does' is much clearer, and it's a great talking point.
I like the talk about the fine line between inexplicable and impossible. Impossible can come off silly, but hit that sweet spot between inexplicable and impossible and you cause the spectator to be genuinely astonished. That's unique.
Most would not argue that what Ricky Jay, David Copperfield, Derek Delgaudio or Eugene Berger does is both magic and magical. I don't want to talk about whether or not what they do is magical, I want to talk about what makes what they do magic.