Slashdot Mirror
Magician Marco Tempest Talks 'Open Sorcery'
bLanark writes "The BBC have a piece about illusionist Marco Tempest who uses technology to generate magical illusions. As he says in the interview unlike most magicians and illusionists he shares his techniques in an act that he calls 'open sorcery.' The techniques include using iPhone apps, and high-speed digital cameras. There is a growing band of people using and contributing to the field."
And so it begins, the legends of the Technomages..
It's The Golden Rule: "He who has the gold makes the rules."
Given even a little of the technology becoming available now, it'd be very easy to 'cheat' at magic. For example, an e-paper playing card. The processor might make it a little thick to handle, but it'd look just like a normal card... except it changes face at the command of the magician or his assistant. Suddenly, every card trick is a joke.
Would this suck the fun out? While magicians may still take pride in their skill, it'd be much harder to impress an audience who realise that those tricks could be done with ease and gadgetry. I imagine television magicians have been through similar issues too: How can you convince the audience that what they see isn't all achieved with camera trickery, short of revealing your method after the trick?
Watched a youtube video of him doing a street magician style trick involving an umbrella. Was pretty obvious that it was a setup given that the woman just happened to have a plain bright red umbrella on what looked to be a warm sunny day. When a magician resorts to using tricks like I just can't enjoy the illusion. If you're going to use actors, off-camera interviews/questionnaires (so you can get info needed for 'psychic' tricks), you may as well go the whole hog and fake every aspect (you could even put in some CGI explosions) .
I would rather see a simple trick done very well than a complex, impressive seeming trick where an unknown amount is has been completely faked (well, technically as it's an illusion it's all fake but I'm sure you know what I mean). One of my favourite tricks is a simple slight of hand: Paul Daniel's Chop Cup.
The hypocrisy is strong with this one.
If you are using an IPhone... stop your bitching and preaching about "open".
why not? An open source windows application is still an open source application
He has two videos on TED, here's his TED profile.
As he says in the interview unlike most magicians and illusionists he shares his techniques in an act that he calls 'open sorcery.'
In related news, a magician working for Microsoft has issued a press statement claiming that this dangerous new trend could well destroy the magic industry.
Ezekiel 23:20
As a magic fan, it's incredibly annoying seeing so many street magicians using camera tricks. The whole point of street magicians is that you're not in a studio, you've limited avenues for preparation and you don't have control over your environment.
I blame people like David Blaine for popularising camera tricks, his 'hovering' trick is the worst. The actual trick is to position your feet in a way where the heel of the other foot blocks people's view of you standing on tiptoes on the other foot, giving the impression you're hovering a few inches off the ground. Neat trick but not impressive and it's very obvious what's happening when it's on camera. Knowing this, David then some point afterwards let himself lifted by a crane, got some actors to wear the same clothes as the people who were in the earlier trick and shot himself being lifted over their shoulders (wire was then CG'ed out). He spliced that footage with the people's reaction from the real trick and it gave the impression he genuinely performed an illusion where he hovered several metres off the ground in front of some random people.
Rule of thumb: if a street magician has any cuts in footage, something is up; there's only a single camera and he only gets one stab at a trick with a set of people, he shouldn't need to ever cut. Also, most "how did he know my birthday and get it in that passing bus?" trick almost always involved them having an interview when the camera isn't rolling or them having filled out a questionnaire beforehand.
If that BBC video is a good example of his tricks, I'm not impressed at all. _obvious_ projections, videos on iphones. I've seen better projector tricks (3D projection mappings) that didn't even call themselves magic. Even Penn and Teller's "magic reveals" are more interesting (I think there was at least one where they reveal the trick but then later do something which makes you go "wait, how the heck did they do that?" since the trick they revealed can't apply to that scenario).
BTW something simple like pulling out cards from "nowhere" can be impressive when taken to the extreme:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmraxBgEZog
If we're going by that logic, literally no software is free. You have to buy a computer, after all!
I thought they'd be all over it!
Have you seen his tricks? They're actually quite impressive, he's bringing some new ideas to spice up the dusty old "pull-white-rabbits-out-of-a-hat" magician community.
Can he make software patents disappear? No? How about patent trolls? <sigh>
While I haven't seen him personally I will give a big bravo to the whole "open magic" movement we have been seeing as of late. look we ALL know its a trick, alright? this ain't the 1600s. Does knowing its a trick ruin it? FUCK NO because it the ARTIST and how they sell it that makes it kick ass. I mean we all knew Heath Ledger wasn't crazy but it was the way he sold the character that has people debating to this day how much was madness and how much was a Zanatos Gambit.
So I'm all for getting rid of the "ohhhh..it's MAGIC!" bullshit like we saw for years so we can get rid of the kayfabe and just concentrate on these folks being damned good entertainers.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
That's not the deal at all. The magician comes on stage, tells you he's going to saw the girl in half, but no-one believes the lie. He presents an effect that is seemingly impossible to achieve, but the audience knows it and gains their sense of wonder from not knowing how he did it. Derren Brown has to tell you the incredibly clever bordering-on-the-psychic method he (didn't actually) use, because the kind of effects he presents aren't really that impressive, particularly on TV.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is a futuristic android.
Which he is. right? RIGHT?!?
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/Teller-Reveals-His-Secrets.html
You guys might enjoy this article.
Also check View All Comments - there is one from The Amazing Randi
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'