4 ms·

I find the cover band metaphor to be the best description of what most magicians do. It is absolutely a performance, and the experience cannot be boiled down to

I find the cover band metaphor to be the best description of what most magicians do. It is absolutely a performance, and the experience cannot be boiled down to the list of notes, but is it art? My take is that it becomes art when the performer introduces genuine personality, something uniquely their, to the performance. Which I found to be very uncommon in magic (to my sadness, there exist fantastic magicians who express themselves through the medium in ways that are unique and worth experiencing in person, I would love to see more of that).

lisper 3y ago
I think magic certainly can be art, though I agree with you that it often isn't. Really good magicians are uncommon. But I think the same could be said about actors in general. A magician is an actor playing the part of a conjuror, and most actors in general are just not very good. Acting is hard. It's not, Gene Cousineau notwithstanding, just hitting your mark and saying the lines.
- spoiler 3y ago
  I find this the cover band analogy a bit unintuitive. Anyone who practices art will tell you arts are very technical (painting is, music is, magic probably is too is). Millions of artists have done similar subject studies; does that make everyone cover artists? I don't know much about magic/illusions, but I would think that someone with enough technical understanding of the craft could apply the techniques originally
  - lisper 3y ago
    This is the thing that very few people understand about magic, including many aspiring magicians: there is a lot more to it than just "technical understanding". Magic is a performance art. It's a kind of acting. And you can be very good at the technical stuff and still be a terrible performer/actor. (Personally, I'm bad at both :-) Here is my favorite example. This is one of the greatest performances of all time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_KcQt0z-eE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_KcQt0z-eE It looks like total chaos, and most people seeing this performance for the first time think that Dani is a master of sleight of hand, and that this performance relies on extremely difficult technical moves. In fact it is exactly the opposite. The secret "moves" are very basic -- anyone can do them, and everything that happens is actually very carefully controlled. (Dani is also a master of slight-of-hand, but that's not what this act relies on.) This is not to say that what Dani is doing here is easy; it's not. Dani teaches a class on this one routine that lasts three hours, and there is never a dull moment (this is how I know what's going on -- I did not figure it out by myself). But it's not hard in the way that, say, juggling is hard, it's hard in the same way that good acting is hard. When it's done well it looks easy, and making it look easy is very, very hard.

lisper 3y ago

I think magic certainly can be art, though I agree with you that it often isn't. Really good magicians are uncommon. But I think the same could be said about actors in general. A magician is an actor playing the part of a conjuror, and most actors in general are just not very good. Acting is hard. It's not, Gene Cousineau notwithstanding, just hitting your mark and saying the lines.

spoiler 3y ago
I find this the cover band analogy a bit unintuitive. Anyone who practices art will tell you arts are very technical (painting is, music is, magic probably is too is). Millions of artists have done similar subject studies; does that make everyone cover artists? I don't know much about magic/illusions, but I would think that someone with enough technical understanding of the craft could apply the techniques originally
- lisper 3y ago
  This is the thing that very few people understand about magic, including many aspiring magicians: there is a lot more to it than just "technical understanding". Magic is a performance art. It's a kind of acting. And you can be very good at the technical stuff and still be a terrible performer/actor. (Personally, I'm bad at both :-) Here is my favorite example. This is one of the greatest performances of all time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_KcQt0z-eE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_KcQt0z-eE It looks like total chaos, and most people seeing this performance for the first time think that Dani is a master of sleight of hand, and that this performance relies on extremely difficult technical moves. In fact it is exactly the opposite. The secret "moves" are very basic -- anyone can do them, and everything that happens is actually very carefully controlled. (Dani is also a master of slight-of-hand, but that's not what this act relies on.) This is not to say that what Dani is doing here is easy; it's not. Dani teaches a class on this one routine that lasts three hours, and there is never a dull moment (this is how I know what's going on -- I did not figure it out by myself). But it's not hard in the way that, say, juggling is hard, it's hard in the same way that good acting is hard. When it's done well it looks easy, and making it look easy is very, very hard.