What is magic? The threshold between trickery and artistry.

[visualartist]

Hey guys,
Here is something that ive wanted to discuss for a while now but I could never put it into words. I wrote a message to steerpike and he helped me get my thoughts straight so here goes
(these are excerpts from the message I sent)
See,I hear alot from spectators on performance videos posted on here after a certain effect is done or whatever they say along the lines of " woah awesome! do another trick".
And that word "trick" is what gets to me. If I ever hear that from one of my spectators I consider it failure on my part.
I didnt do my job well enough to make them believe for that one moment.
Ive been hearing that less and less over the years and so I hope that means im improving. But my concern is the other magicians on here. How is a sandwich routine magic? For a spectator, I think, these performers fall into category one.
The generic ACR routine performer and lowly birthday performer. Do you see what im getting at?
Half of us here dont perform magic.
just tricks.
Even when it isnt a card trick the way that these things are presented is just a trick. For example,Once I watched a performance video(liam walsh) with a friend of mine and she said "that was a cool trick". It was the haunted pack trick.Now you must know what his patter is like

About 2 weeks later I performed the same thing but I told her my thoughts on the "free your mind" concept. That we believe in gravity and other things because we accept it as an inevitabilty.After I performed the effect she didnt say much and her eyes wandered a bit.She regained her posture after awhile and luaghed it off a bit
but still seemed in thought the rest of the night.
Is this magic?Or a display in telekenetic powers? Could it be the same thing?
Can a sandwich effect be experienced as magic by a spectator?Or is it true that no matter what kind of presentation you wish to have, a card trick will still be seen as a trick?
So then a generic coins across routine or ACR is not magic but just a series of amusing little tricks?
Or with the right presentation,atmosphere,remove all the cheesiness from the effect and create an original performance it can be magic..?
I can answer my own questions since I made them myself but I want other people to answer them and if they cant, then in doing so make them step back and ask themselves if they are doing magic..or just amusing little tricks?


So where is the line?
When do you stop performing tricks and perform real magic?

 

[Steerpike]

You could have asked me first about quoting that message.

 

[aJohnson]

I wouldn't say hearing that means it's a failure. Many people do not believe in magic, like many people don't believe in religion. So in there minds, all it will seem like is a very well constructed trick and some of these people will never say it's magic, even if it is a perfect performance.

 

[Sinful07]

Private messages are meant to be private.

Though this has helped me a bit though. Cheers Steerpike. Two birds with one stone eh?

-Sin07

 

[Mentalizing]

No matter how great your presentation sometimes it will always be doing just a trick to some people. Your performance can enhance it but the spectator is what defines because there are hecklers and layman and your presentation can make it a great trick or surreal. That's my take because I can give the best performance next to Copperfield's and some of the people I do magic to just look at it like a puzzle.

 

[Dylan P.]

It is true that some people will always see it as a trick. But these people are the ones that have been bogged down by the facts and never enlightened by fiction. They are too scared to step outside the boundaries of "the real world" to see how fun impossibilities can be. If these people would stop obeying nthe laws of science and come to see what we see then they nwould have more fun with their life. But their lives have been corrupted by rules and laws and "undisputable facts" (Or so they are told) and can not come to believe that there is anything "magical" about the world. These people are dead on the inside.

 

[Zeedub81]

Does it matter? As long as your spectators have a good time and are amazed, then I think you've done your job.

 

[Steerpike]

Does it matter? As long as your spectators have a good time and are amazed, then I think you've done your job.

I prefer to set the bar a bit higher if I'm going to have the audacity to call myself an artist. I'm a bit rare among my generation of magicians in that I don't believe in settling.

We sometimes catch a window
A glimpse of what's beyond
Was it just imagination
Stringing us along?
More things than are dreamed about
Unseen and unexplained
We suspend our disbelief
And we are entertained

 

[aJohnson]

Steerpike, you're not that rare, many Magicians pursue perfection and don't settle, like I.
Maybe your attitude is rare, in the fact that you don't give constructive criticism, you just give criticism.

Don't bother trying to argue with me, I wont argue back.

 

[Steerpike]

Oh spare me. The petulance and whining of my critics is really beginning to get on my nerves. The hypocrisy is especially tiresome.

The subject here is what separates trickery from artistry. If the best argument that people can think of is to say that getting reactions and entertaining is all that matters, then for me to explain my complex views on artistry and the artist would be casting pearls before swine. I'd be more than happy to have that discussion with people of intelligence and a desire for self-improvement, but I want to see them contribute before I fully stick my neck out.

 

[Randy]

Oh spare me. The petulance and whining of my critics is really beginning to get on my nerves. The hypocrisy is especially tiresome.

The subject here is what separates trickery from artistry. If the best argument that people can think of is to say that getting reactions and entertaining is all that matters, then for me to explain my complex views on artistry and the artist would be casting pearls before swine. I'd be more than happy to have that discussion with people of intelligence and a desire for self-improvement, but I want to see them contribute before I fully stick my neck out.

Well has you once said. What does it matter to your audience if your an artist or not? A real artist does not tell the world what he is, he simply proves it with his art and lets it speak for itself.

As for the trickery thing. That mainly happens when you present what you do as a trick and also put on the challenge attitude even if you don't realize it.

Also the difference is that one inspires and the other simply does tricks.

 

[visualartist]

From what ive read so far getting any form of reaction(more than likely screams and woahs)
is all that matters..
Saddening.

 

[Randy]

From what ive read so far getting any form of reaction(more than likely screams and woahs)
is all that matters..
Saddening.

For YOU, yes. But maybe other people are happy with that. As long as they brought joy and entertainment to other peoples lives than that's good enough for them.

 

[aJohnson]

Reactions are always different, there will be people who scream at almost everything and people who scream at absolutely nothing and just say "Pretty cool". YOU as a performer cannot handpick your audience (Most of the time). So you've gotta work with what you've got.

 

[Steerpike]

A real artist does not tell the world what he is, he simply proves it with his art and lets it speak for itself.

I said no such thing.

For YOU, yes. But maybe other people are happy with that. As long as they brought joy and entertainment to other peoples lives than that's good enough for them.

If they're content with that, then they won't concern themselves with this thread in the first place. Do not try to dumb down the conversation by advocating for those who don't want to partake in the discussion.

Reactions are always different, there will be people who scream at almost everything and people who scream at absolutely nothing and just say "Pretty cool". YOU as a performer cannot handpick your audience (Most of the time). So you've gotta work with what you've got.

Completely irrelevant.

 

[aJohnson]

Completely irrelevant.

No it's not. The person who posted before me stated that some people are happy with getting decent reactions some times, so I stated that that's all you'll get sometimes, you got to deal with it.

 

[Steerpike]

No it's not. The person who posted before me stated that some people are happy with getting decent reactions some times, so I stated that that's all you'll get sometimes, you got to deal with it.

No it's irrelevant. He wasn't asking you to pick your audience. He was asking you to not make the cliched screaming reactions the Mount Everest of your magic. And I agree.

I very rarely get loud, screaming reactions. And it's not because I get to pick my audience, balls no! As an explanation, let me tell you this: the comment I get the most often after the reactions is, "You're not like other magicians. You actually talk to us."

What does that say about the magic community at large?

 

[aJohnson]

Picking your audience wasn't my main point, what I was saying is getting screams can happen any time, even with a mediocre performance. And getting a "That's pretty cool" can happen with an outstanding audience.

So what I was getting at this, don't let the reactions be the be all and end all.

Anyway, I'm going to bed, goodbye.

 

[Steerpike]

So what I was getting at this, don't let the reactions be the be all and end all.

No one was suggesting they should be.

 

[Randy]

No it's irrelevant. He wasn't asking you to pick your audience. He was asking you to not make the cliched screaming reactions the Mount Everest of your magic. And I agree.

I very rarely get loud, screaming reactions. And it's not because I get to pick my audience, balls no! As an explanation, let me tell you this: the comment I get the most often after the reactions is, "You're not like other magicians. You actually talk to us."

What does that say about the magic community at large?

Well that is a problem. Lots of guys will script stuff and as David Stone would say they adapt the "QUIET ON THE SET!" attitude. Aaron Fisher believes that it is because the sleights are not "organic" meaning that when you do something that has too many moves, you tend to focus on your hands too much. It is a problem and it is easy to over come. Just that a lot guys like to be move monkeys and not make the magic about the audience as John G would say.