Paul Harris has famously said that properly done, magic should take us back to an infantile, child-like state of wonder. Derren Brown, in Pure Effect, agrees.
I admire both of them immensely, but I think I disagree. Whatever I remember of my childhood, I remember a world where everything is possible.
In a world where everything is possible, very little can truly make somebody appreciate magic the art form. I remember seeing a magic performance, and while I enjoyed it for the fun persona and performance of the magician, I wasn't really fascinated by the magic. Because in my opinion everything was possible and I didn't know enough to understand what I didn't know. For me, if a small vessel had endless water inside it, or a coin penetrated inside a bottle, or somebody said they have a hidden 'skin' pocket in their palms from which they pull out coins (all examples of effects I remember seeing at that time), according to me, there was nothing happening that was not normal. Therefore there was no magic happening. The effects that I did enjoy as magic (somebody finding out what card I picked or cards changing colour), I'd have accepted any solution the performer provided.
"...what? You say you saw an after-image of my card in my eyes? Makes sense..."
Waving Aces seem less (or even don't, for me) magical if one truly believes that cards can turn over automatically. Or if one believes that Invisible Dice really exist and Asi Wind uses them for his performances.
My point is that in a world where magic is real, the magic performed by magicians is less than mediocre. It's frankly boring. Magic as an art form would still survive in that world if every performance was somebody walking on River Thames or vanishing the Statue of Liberty. Anything less than that, would be laughable.
So in my opinion, magic doesn't lie in managing to tranfer the audience's mind back to the primal, infantile state of wonder. Instead, it lies exactly in the extreme unwillingness of the audience to be transferred to that state and yet seeing, hearing or feeling something that does exactly that. It is in that struggle that the experience of magic lies, and that is my goal (currently, and of course, subject to change).
Needless to say, by using the word 'struggle' I don't mean that the magician and the audience are at two ends of a fight, or that the magician must defeat the audience somehow. The struggle is inherently within the audience themselves (there's no need for the magician to be antagonising). I know that magician Jamy Ian Swiss has also talked about this issue and it was reading his take on it that made me look a bit closer into the idea.
Essentially, a world where everything is magical, nothing really is (there is a slight reference to a particular Disney-Pixar movie, bonus points if you know which one).
~~~***~~~
So what is your opinion? Or do you interpret Paul Harris' words in a different way?
Irrespective of the ideas mentioned above, what, really, is your goal when you perform magic? What is the emotion that you want to leave your audience with? And to what level do you think you succeed in it?
PS: Everything I stated above is of course just my own opinion and my own interpretation, which may change some time, and similarly your answers to the above questions may also change. The point of this post is to get people think and mostly because I love discussing these intricacies of magic.
I admire both of them immensely, but I think I disagree. Whatever I remember of my childhood, I remember a world where everything is possible.
In a world where everything is possible, very little can truly make somebody appreciate magic the art form. I remember seeing a magic performance, and while I enjoyed it for the fun persona and performance of the magician, I wasn't really fascinated by the magic. Because in my opinion everything was possible and I didn't know enough to understand what I didn't know. For me, if a small vessel had endless water inside it, or a coin penetrated inside a bottle, or somebody said they have a hidden 'skin' pocket in their palms from which they pull out coins (all examples of effects I remember seeing at that time), according to me, there was nothing happening that was not normal. Therefore there was no magic happening. The effects that I did enjoy as magic (somebody finding out what card I picked or cards changing colour), I'd have accepted any solution the performer provided.
"...what? You say you saw an after-image of my card in my eyes? Makes sense..."
Waving Aces seem less (or even don't, for me) magical if one truly believes that cards can turn over automatically. Or if one believes that Invisible Dice really exist and Asi Wind uses them for his performances.
My point is that in a world where magic is real, the magic performed by magicians is less than mediocre. It's frankly boring. Magic as an art form would still survive in that world if every performance was somebody walking on River Thames or vanishing the Statue of Liberty. Anything less than that, would be laughable.
So in my opinion, magic doesn't lie in managing to tranfer the audience's mind back to the primal, infantile state of wonder. Instead, it lies exactly in the extreme unwillingness of the audience to be transferred to that state and yet seeing, hearing or feeling something that does exactly that. It is in that struggle that the experience of magic lies, and that is my goal (currently, and of course, subject to change).
Needless to say, by using the word 'struggle' I don't mean that the magician and the audience are at two ends of a fight, or that the magician must defeat the audience somehow. The struggle is inherently within the audience themselves (there's no need for the magician to be antagonising). I know that magician Jamy Ian Swiss has also talked about this issue and it was reading his take on it that made me look a bit closer into the idea.
Essentially, a world where everything is magical, nothing really is (there is a slight reference to a particular Disney-Pixar movie, bonus points if you know which one).
~~~***~~~
So what is your opinion? Or do you interpret Paul Harris' words in a different way?
Irrespective of the ideas mentioned above, what, really, is your goal when you perform magic? What is the emotion that you want to leave your audience with? And to what level do you think you succeed in it?
PS: Everything I stated above is of course just my own opinion and my own interpretation, which may change some time, and similarly your answers to the above questions may also change. The point of this post is to get people think and mostly because I love discussing these intricacies of magic.