Magic (illusion)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Magic, including the arts of prestidigitation and conjuring, is the art of entertaining an audience by performing illusions that baffle and amaze, often by giving the impression that something impossible has been achieved, almost as if the performer had magic or supernatural powers. Yet, this illusion of magic is created entirely by natural means. The practitioners of this mystery art may be called magicians, conjurors, illusionists or prestidigitators. Artists in other media such as theatre, cinema, dance and the visual arts increasingly work using similar means but regard their magical techniques as of secondary importance to the goal of creating a complex cultural performance.
Contents |
[edit] History
Performances we would recognize as conjuring date back as early as ancient Egyptian civilization. The same ingenuity behind ancient deceptions such as the Trojan horse would have been used for entertainment in plays or other public performances. Additionally, cheating in gambling games frequently used (and still uses today) common techniques and sleights utilized by performing magicians. However, the respectable profession of the illusionist gained strength during the eighteenth century, and has enjoyed several popular vogues. Successful magicians have become some of the most famous celebrities in popular entertainment.
From 1756 to 1781, Jacob Philadelphia performed feats of magic, sometimes under the guise of scientific exhibitions, throughout Europe. Likewise, his Italian colleague and friend Giuseppe Pinetti, the most imitated magician of the eighteenth century, performed in Spain, Portugal, France, England, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Poland and even Russia, where he died around 1800. Modern entertainment magic owes much of its origins to Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin (1805-1871), originally a clockmaker, who opened a magic theatre in Paris in the 1840s. His speciality was the construction of mechanical automata, perhaps inspired by Leonardo Da Vinci's machines and Giuseppe Pinetti's robots, which appeared to move and act as if they were alive. The British performer Maskelyne and his partner Cooke established their own theatre, the Egyptian Hall in London's Piccadilly, in 1873. They presented stage magic, exploiting the potential of the stage for hidden mechanisms and assistants, and the control it offers over the audience's point of view. The greatest celebrity magician of the nineteenth century (or possibly of all time), Harry Houdini (real name Ehrich Weiss, 1874 - 1926), took his stage name from Robert-Houdin and developed a range of stage presentations, much of it based on escapology (though that word was not used until after Houdini's death). The son of a Hungarian rabbi, Houdini was genuinely highly skilled in techniques such as lock picking and escaping straitjackets, but also made full use of the whole range of conjuring techniques, including fake equipment and collusion with individuals in the audience. Houdini's show-business savvy was as great as his performing skill. There is a Houdini Museum dedicated to him in Scranton, Pennsylvania. In addition to expanding the range of magic hardware, showmanship and deceptive technique, these performers established the modern relationship between the performer and the audience.
In this relationship, there is an unspoken agreement between the performer and the audience about what is going on. Unlike in the past, almost no performers today actually claim to possess supernatural powers (although there are exceptions to this, they are regarded as charlatans). It is understood by everyone that the effects in the performance are accomplished through sleight of hand (also called legerdemain), misdirection, deception, collusion with a member of the audience, apparatus with secret mechanisms, mirrors, and other trickery. The performer seeks to present an effect so clever and skillful that the audience cannot believe its eyes, and cannot imagine an explanation. The sense of bafflement is part of the entertainment. In turn, the audience plays a role in which it agrees to be entertained by something known to be a deception. Houdini also gained the trust of his audiences by using his knowledge of illusions to debunk predatory charlatans, a tradition continued by magicians such as James Randi, P. C. Sorcar, and Penn and Teller.
Magic has come and gone in fashion. For instance, the magic show for much of the 20th Century was marginalized in North America as largely children's entertainment. A revival started with Doug Henning, who reestablished the magic show as a form of mass entertainment with his distinctive look that rejected the old stereotypes and his sense of showmanship that became popular on both stage and numerous television specials.
Today, the art is enjoying a vogue, driven by a number of highly successful performers such as David Copperfield, Hans Klok, Lance Burton, Penn and Teller, Derren Brown, Criss Angel, Dorothy Dietrich, Bernard Innocent, Garrett "Jeffy" Stevenson and many other stage and TV performers. David Blaine is sometimes included in this category, though his major performances have been more a combination of Houdini-style escapes and physical endurance displays than the illusion magic performed by others. The mid-twentieth century saw magic transform in many different aspects: some performers preferred to renovate the craft on stage --- such as The Mentalizer Show in Times Square which dared to mix themes of spirituality and kabbalah with the art of magic --- others successfully made the transition to TV, which opens up new opportunities for deceptions, and brings the performer to huge audiences. A widely accepted code has developed, in which TV magicians can use all the traditional forms of deception, but should not resort to camera tricks, editing the videotape, or other TV special effects --- this makes deception too "easy", in the popular mind. Most TV magicians are shown performing before a live audience, which provides the remote viewer with a (sometimes misleading) reassurance that the effects are not obtained with the help of camera tricks.
Many of the basic principles of magic are comparatively old. The old expression, "it's all done with smoke and mirrors", is generally used tongue-in-cheek to describe something baffling, but contrary to popular belief, magic effects are seldom achieved using mirrors today, due to the amount of work needed to install them and difficulties in transport. For example, the famous Pepper's Ghost, a stage illusion first used in 19th century London, required a specially built theatre. Harry Houdini led the field of vanishing large objects, by making an elephant disappear on stage, although not using mirrors, and modern performers have vanished objects as big as the Taj Mahal, Statue of Liberty, and the Space Shuttle, using other kinds of optical deceptions.
[edit] Categories of illusions
Although there is much discussion among magicians as to how a given effect is to be categorized, and in fact, disagreements as to what categories actually exist -- for instance, some magicians consider "penetrations" to be a separate category, others consider penetrations a form of restoration or teleportation -- it is generally agreed that there are very few different types of illusions.
Perhaps because it is considered a magic number, it has often been said that there are only seven types of illusion:
[edit] Production
The magician pulls a rabbit from an empty hat; a fan of cards from 'thin air'; a shower of coins from an empty bucket; or appears in a puff of smoke on an empty stage-- all of these effects are productions, the magician produces "something from nothing".
[edit] Vanish
The magician snaps his fingers and a coin disappears; places a dove in a cage, claps his hands and the bird vanishes, including the cage, stuffs a silk into his fist and opens his hands revealing nothing, or waves a magic wand and the Statue of Liberty magically "goes away". A vanish, being the reverse of a production, may use a similar technique, in reverse.
[edit] Transformation
A magician pulls a red handkerchief through his fist twice, and then it suddenly turns into a blue one on the third pass. A spectator is shown a penny to hold in a closed fist. After squeezing it tightly, it becomes a dime in the spectator's hand. A magician requests a volunteer to "pick a card, any card" from a deck. With a flourish the magician shows the card to the volunteer and asks "is this your card?" -- it is not the card, and the magician tells the volunteer, "here, hold it for a second", handing them the card and then picking card after card from the deck, none of which is the card the volunteer picked. The magician asks, "will you look at that first card again?" -- whereupon the volunteer finds it has magically become their card.
[edit] Restoration
The cut-and-restored rope is a restoration: a rope is cut into two pieces, the two pieces are tied together, the knot vanishes, leaving one piece of rope. A newspaper is torn to bits. The magician rubs the pieces together and the newspaper becomes whole. A woman is sawn into two separate parts and then magically rejoined. A card is torn in fourths and then restored piece by piece to a normal state. Restorations put something back into the state it once was
[edit] Teleportation
A teleportation transfers an object from one place to another. A coin is vanished, then later found inside a tightly bound bag, which is inside a box that is tied shut, inside another box, which is in a locked box - all of which were across the stage.
The magician locks his assistant in a cage, then locks himself in another. Both cages are uncovered and the pair have magically exchanged places. This is a transposition, a simultaneous, double teleportation.
[edit] Levitation
The magician "puts his assistant into a trance" and then floats him or her up and into the air, passing a ring around his or her body as proof that there are 'no wires' supporting her. A close-up artist wads up your dollar bill and then floats it in the air. A playing card hovers over a deck of cards. A penny on an open palm rises onto its edge on command. A scarf dances in a sealed bottle. Levitations are illusions where the conjurer magically raises something -- possibly including the magician into the air. There are many ways to create the illusion of levitation, such as the Balducci levitation, the King Rising, Criss Angel's stool levitations, the Andruzzi levitations, and the zero gravity or the eight gravity. ha yeah man
[edit] Penetration
One solid object passes through another, as in such old standbys as "the Linking Rings" (a magical effect the magician creates by seemingly passing solid steel rings through one another), the "Cups and Balls" (in which the balls appear to pass through the bottom of an inverted cup to the table below), and the classic "Saltshaker Penetration."
[edit] Secrecy
The purpose of a magic is to amuse and create a feeling of wonder; the audience is generally aware that the magic is performed using trickery, and derives enjoyment from the magician's skill and cunning. Traditionally, magicians refuse to reveal the secrets to the audience. The reasons include:
- Exposure is claimed to "kill" magic as an artform and transforms it into mere intellectual puzzles and riddles. It is argued that once the secret of a trick is revealed to a person, that one can no longer fully enjoy subsequent performances of that magic, as the amazement is missing. Sometimes the secret is so simple that the audience feels let down, and feels disappointed it was taken in so easily.
- Keeping the secrets preserves the professional mystery of magicians who perform for money.
Membership in professional magicians' organizations often requires a solemn commitment to the "Magician's Oath" never to reveal the secrets of magic to non-magicians.
- The Magician's Oath (though it may vary, 'The Oath' takes the following, or similar form):
-
- "As a magician I promise never to reveal the secret of any illusion to a non-magician, unless that one swears to uphold the Magician's Oath in turn. I promise never to perform any illusion for any non-magician without first practicing the effect until I can perform it well enough to maintain the illusion of magic".
Once sworn to The Oath, one is considered a magician, and is expected to live up to this promise. A magician who reveals a secret, either purposely or through insufficient practice, may typically find oneself without any magicians willing to teach one any more secrets.
However, it is considered permissible to reveal secrets to individuals who are determined to learn magic and become magicians. It is typically a sequential process of increasingly valuable and lesser known secrets. The secrets of almost all magical effects are available to the public through numerous books and magazines devoted to magic, available from the specialised magic trade. There are also web sites which offer videos, DVDs and instructional materials for the aspiring conjuror. In this sense, there are very few classical illusions left unrevealed, however this does not appear to have diminished the appeal of performances. In addition, magic is a living art, and new illusions are devised with surprising regularity. Sometimes a 'new' illusion will be built on an illusion that is old enough to have become unfamiliar.
Some magicians have taken the controversial position that revealing the methods used in certain works of magic can enhance the appreciation of the audience for cleverness of magic. Penn and Teller frequently perform tricks using transparent props to reveal how it is done, for example, although they almost always include additional unexplained effects at the end that are made even more astonishing by the revealing props being used.
Often what seems to be a revelation of a magical secret is merely another form of misdirection. For instance, a magician may explain to an audience member that the linking rings "have a hole in them" and hand the volunteer two unlinked rings, which the volunteer finds to have become linked as soon as he handles them. At this point the magician may shove her arm through the ring ('the hole in the ring'), proclaiming: "See? Once you know that every ring has a hole, it's easy!"
See also Intellectual rights to magic methods
[edit] Learning Magic
Once upon a time, the teaching of performance magic had been a secretive and sensitive subject, such that professional magicians felt unwilling to share knowledge with anyone outside the profession lest the laity might discover their secrets. This made it hard for an interested apprentice to learn magic beyond the basics. Some magic organisations had and still have strict rules that demand members must not discuss magic secrets with anyone but established magicians.
Ever since the 1584 publication of Reginald Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft, and up until the end of the 19th century, only a few books had helped budding magicians to learn the craft. Books remain useful today. For the modern student, a video recording transcends the power of a book, letting the apprentice mimic the master, following along as the magician dissects presentation and performance of latter-day versions of ancient artistry.
The next step up from a video is a magic club or workshop. Here magicians, both seasoned and novitiate, can work together and help one another for mutual improvement, to learn new techniques, to discuss all aspects of magic, to perform for each other — sharing advice, encouragement and criticism.
The world's largest magic organization is the International Brotherhood of Magicians (which also publishes a monthly journal entitled The Linking Ring).
[edit] Types of magic performance
Magic performances fall into five broad genres:
- Close-up magic, which is performed with the audience close to the magician, possibly in physical contact. It usually makes use of everyday items as props, such as cards and coins (see Coin magic). (Ricky Jay, Lee Asher), following in the traditions of Dai Vernon and Max Malini, is considered the foremost practitioner of close-up magic today. This is also sometimes called "table magic" particularly when performed as dinner entertainment.
- Platform magic, in which the magician stands while performing and is seen by more people simultaneously than the close-up performer. Examples of platform magicians include David Abbott.
- Cabaret Magic, in which the magician performs for a medium to large audience, but at or almost at floor level and much closer to many spectators than in auditorium performances. Night club magic and comedy club magic are typical examples. Cabaret performers can generally also function as stage performers. The long-obsolete term parlor magic is sometimes misused as a synonym for cabaret magic.
- Stage magic, which is performed for large audiences, typically within an auditorium. This type of magic is distinguished by elaborate, large-scale props. The most famous magicians in the world, such as David Copperfield, Siegfried & Roy, and Penn and Teller, are best known for their ability in stage-magic.
- Children's magic, which is performed for an audience primary of children, typically performed at a birthday party, daycare or preschool, elementary school, or library. This type of magic is usually comedic in nature and involves audience interaction as well as volunteer assistants. Some magicians, such as Todd McKinney, Luis Villamonte, David Ginn, Samuel Patrick Smith, Richard Green and Barry Mitchell are best known for their ability to entertain children through their performances, books, DVDs, and CDs.
Other specialties or niches have been created:
- Street magic (sometimes called "guerilla magic"), a hybrid of stage magic and close-up magic, which is performed for audiences that don’t always know that they are audiences. The street magician uses magic to gather a crowd and convinces them that it is good enough to deserve money at the end of the show. One of the classics of street magic is the cups and balls routine. Famous street performers include Cyril Takayama, Gazzo, Cellini, Tom Payne, David Blaine, and Criss Angel.
- Bizarre magic, which uses mystical, horror, fantasy and other similar themes in performance. Bizarre magic is typically performed in a close-up venue, although some performers have effectively presented it in a stage setting. Charles Cameron has generally been credited as the "godfather of bizarre magic." Others such as Tony Raven, Tony Andruzzi, and Tony "Doc" Shiels contributed significantly to its development.
- Mentalism, which creates the impression in the minds of the audience that the performer possesses special powers to read thoughts, predict events, control other minds, and other similar feats. Magicians in this field include Max Maven, Luke Jermay, Derren Brown and Banachek.
- Shock magic is a genre of magic that shocks the audience, hence the name. Sometimes referred to as "geek magic", it takes its roots from circus sideshows, in which "freakish" performances were shown to audiences. Common shock magic or geek magic effects include eating razor blades, needle-through-arm and pen-through-tongue. Magicians known for performing shock magic include Criss Angel, Andrew Mayne and Brian Brushwood.
- Corporate Magic uses magic as a communication tool as opposed to just straight forward entertainment. Corporate magicians come from a business background and have typically moved in to magic later in their careers. This allows them to not only perform magic but to also understand how this can be applied to business communications. Corporate magicians typically present at meetings, conferences and product launches also they run workshops and can sometime be found at trade shows.
[edit] Techniques
Close up magic relies mostly on sleight of hand in which skilful manipulation of cards, coins and other props enables an effect to be created. For example, the appearance that an item has vanished (or been produced) can be achieved by a sleight in which the item is held in such a way that it is not visible to the audience and the hand appears empty (eg. palming a coin or card). There is a wide range of basic sleights described in the literature for vanishing, producing, and switching small items. Magicians today seldom resort to hiding things up their sleeves, which has become a cliché, although this technique can still be used on occasion.
Sleights require a good deal of practice to perform convincingly, and so many (but not all) beginners are attracted to a reliance on hardware gimmicks instead. Yet most shop-bought gimmicks often seem obviously just that to the audience, even if the exact mechanism is not understood. Professional magicians do use hardware gimmicks, but tend to base their acts on skill with sleight of hand as the main foundation. Many magicians see gimmicks and sleight of hand as a means to an end, and most use a combination of both.
Stage magic tends to revolve around large props that are almost always gimmicked, in that some kind of secret mechanism is involved. The performer's skill is then largely in timing, patter, panache, comedy value, and related acting skills. Common stage props include cabinets capable of concealing an assistant; boxes from which items can disappear or appear; rings that can be linked and unlinked; and swords, knives or even guns which help create illusions of deadly danger.
Children's magic requires a good understanding of how children are going to react to different visual effects. The performer skills depends largely on involving the children throughout each routine, keeping their mind active and using their comments to the best comedy and entertainment out of that routine. Sleight of hand skill is rarely necessary, and the magic that is most successful is visual and comedy in nature. Stage magic in the smaller visual props is quite often used, however, some of the best routines are those that are specifically designed for kids. Many age-old classics of magic work well in this group such as Run-Rabbit-Run, Miser's Dream, and the use of rabbits and doves in the acts
One principle that underlies virtually all magical effects is misdirection, which is the act of drawing the audience's attention to one location while, in another location, the magician performs a crucial manipulation undetected. For example, by drawing attention to one hand by snapping the fingers, tossing and catching a prop, or saying "watch this hand", the performer can force the audience to look, however briefly, in a certain direction, and use this as cover for what the other hand is doing. This is the basic idea of misdirection, although it can become very sophisticated and subtle for an advanced magician. These are based on the natural instincts of a human being, relating to psychology. People should not be amazed at the effect just seen, but at how easily an effect has fooled them. The seasoned magician is a step ahead of the spectator. The magician knows something that the spectator does not and that one thing that the magician knows is what makes the illusion come to life. It can be something very confusing or it can be very simple.
Misdirection can also mean to re-direct or re-structure the spectator's perception of the action taking place. For example, telling a person to "look into the empty box" when really a secret compartment hides something. The word 'empty' is used to restructure their perception of the box. Another example is when placing something from one hand into another accompanied by the appropriate phrase and expression when really the item is not placed where it is said to go.
Many different techniques are used to create misdirection, and all require great amounts of practice to perfect. One technique is the use of natural-looking and confident movements, to disguise any surreptitious manipulations. Making a hand with a palmed coin move and behave like an empty hand is an acting skill used to misdirect the audience in coin magic. Another technique is the use of a confident flow of chatter from the magician, known as "patter". Patter may take the form of a story, or it may simply be the magician (selectively) narrating the actions being performed. Either way, it directs the attention of the audience wherever the magician wishes.
Another technique of misdirection is the use of optical illusions to hide or displace the location or size of objects. When the faces of a box are painted with concentric rectangles, or a hollow tabletop is beveled so that it is thicker in the center than at the edges, such containers appear to be much thinner than they actually are. These are often used in stage illusions, since they allow an assistant to hide in a space that appears to be too small to fit in, or to turn sideways and assume different positions in a box when there appears to be too little room to move.
Misdirection, along with theatrical acting abilities can help to improve how the magic is perceived by the audience, although the method is mostly based on gimmicks and manual dexterity with sleight of hand. These elements show the difference between an expert magician and a beginner, even while they perform the same effect.
[edit] Misuse of magic
In modern conjuring, it is not considered fully honest to give a performance which claims to be anything other than a clever and skillful deception. In today's skeptical world, claims of actual supernatural powers would likely be greeted with ridicule, although many people believed that the hugely successful 1970s illusionist Uri Geller had a paranormal ability to bend spoons, for example.
Other performers have capitalised on popular belief in ESP and other paranormal phenomena as a way of presenting magical effects. However, there are dishonest performers who use the techniques of conjuring for fraudulent goals. Cheating at card games is an obvious example, and is no more than a form of theft. During the height of the vogue for spiritualism and the wave of popularity for séances in the late 19th century, many fraudulent mediums used conjuring methods to perform illusions at séances designed to convince those present of actual supernatural events, for financial gain. The great escapologist and illusionist Harry Houdini devoted much of his time to exposing fraudulent mediums. Spiritualists and mediums at work today tend to shy away from effects such as making knocking sounds in darkened rooms, and objects apparently moving without being touched, as these were devices often used in the past by fraudulent practitioners.
Many grifters still use simple magician's effects to defraud the innocent, yet often such abuses have been exposed and debunked. The three card ruse known as "Find the Lady" or "Three-card Monte", is an old favourite of street hustlers and con men who sucker the victim into betting on what seems like an easy and obvious "game." Another example is the shell game, in which a pea is hidden under one of three walnut shells subsequently shuffled around the table (or sidewalk) so slowly as to make the pea's apparently position only seemingly obvious to the victim. Although these are well known as frauds, some people are willing to lose money on them just for the entertainment value. There are other street hustles which use conjuring techniques and methods such as misdirection to commit theft.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Milbourne Christopher; Panorama of Magic (1962)
- Joseph Dunninger; The Complete Encyclopedia of Magic (no date)
- James Randi; Conjuring Being a Definitive History (1992)
- Michael Mangan; Performing Dark Arts: A Cultural History of Conjuring (Intellect, 2007)
| Magic | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
History of magic | Timeline of magic | Magic tricks Parlor magic | Card magic | Street magic | Mentalism | Coin magic | Escapology Exposure of magic tricks | Intellectual rights to magic methods Professional magicians | List of conjuring terms | List of magic tricks |
||||||
