Medialab Prado

 
Abstract:

Over the centuries, magicians have played a unique role in exploiting emerging technologies and underlying cultural anxieties to create spectacles so alluring that audiences willingly participate in their own delusion. My thesis presents a history of that dynamic and a description of Alchemy of Light, a multi-media performance work that I am creating to reveal the relationship of that history to current cultural concerns.

The historic section of my research explores the line between what is “human” and what is “mechanical” as well as between fantasy and the real by looking at the first employment of the magical lantern, automata and wax figures. The role of the magician is revealed through Robertson’s magic spectacles in post-terror Paris, which played on his audiences’ very real traumas and losses. The invention of electricity, the phonograph, photography and cinema is explored in its capacity to record manifestations of our lives and thus question the delineation between life and death. The magician’s uses of these technologies are exposed in relation to the questions of their times.

The thesis concludes with a discussion of the development of the interactive media performance Alchemy of Light. The performance melds 19th century illusionism with current interactive technologies to relate the tale of the 19th century magician, Torrini as a parable of the seduction and limits of technology. The paper describes the development of the Magic Box as a physical trailer for the performance piece and goes on to share the experiences gained in the first steps of the rehearsal process. It concludes with an outlook to the future steps of Alchemy of Light and its premier at the HERE Theater in 2009.