This is somewhat semantic, but so be it. I disagree with the idea that a performance elevates itself to artistry just because a spectators reaction is to believe for however long that magic is real.
I may be misreading the first post in this thread, the essance of which I agree with, and if I am I'm sure there'll be a queue of angry people to correct me, but isn't the entire premis of this thread based on reaction?
Sure, for me, I'm a simple person. I like to do magic, have fun doing it and make other people have fun. It may not be lofty, and it may not be satisfactory for everyone, but its enough for me. My problem with this thread's premis is:
How can you make an objective distrinction between a screaming reaction and a silent...."omg....magic is real" reaction and use that as the basis to seperate a mere trick from artistry? Or moreover, an audience saying, "Do another trick?" Not to get a bit linguistic here, but most people associate magic with a trick.
If the point is that a good performer will more readily suspend the disbelief of an audience and have them more suseptable to believe they have literally witnessed the impossible, then I agree completely. My problem is using the audience reaction as a way of making that judgement in any kind of an objective way. I've had reactions well beyond, "that's a trick", and I am no artist, nor does generating that kind of a reaction make me artistic in any way. I may have just performed a trick well.
In my opinion an artist should speak through their work, and make a point that transends the act of a card trick. That I agree with, but don't aspire to, because that defeats the purpose of the magic I like to do, as a hobbiest. To infer that the purpose of good magic is to prove that magic exists, or make people suspend their disbelief is like saying that a painting as an art form exists merely to show colors on a canvas. If people think they've seen a cheap trick, then you haven't failed as an artist, you've done worse and failed as a magician by any definition. In my opinion, however skeptical it may be, I believe that a good magician asks fundamental questions about people's rights to assume knowledge of the world around them. That's when a magician has done his or her job at all. With that as my definintion I don't think that magic is capable of being an art form in the truest sense of the word. It can't transend what it is into the abstract without losing itself completely.
I digress. Basically, I don't like the idea that an audience reaction can elevate a performance to art. Art at its uppermost extreme is completely and utterly unappreciable by the uninitiated. (Walk round any modern art exhibition with no formal artistic training and see what I mean.) That would totally defeat the purpose of magic at all, whether its called a trick or a life changing experience. Magic is a form of entertainment, no more, no less.
