Week-04

My Take on Magic Shows! (Miscellaneous) 

Hi Guys! I hope everyone had an amazing week! For those of you who tried guessing the mystery place; the time has come to see who has won! If you guessed the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas...congrats! You're right! Bonus points if you guessed them both! :) 

This week, I'd like to share something about magic shows and illusionists. To be honest, I have pretty much zero knowledge regarding this matter. So you may be asking yourself, why I would even bother?  Well, when I was in Las Vegas, we saw a illusionist and magician called David Copperfield. He was comedic and had pretty cool tricks to share with the crowd. Copperfield, has done some pretty amazing things! He has been nominated for 38 Emmy Awards and won 21 of them. He has also earned 11 Guinness World Records and even knighthood by the French Government. Additionally, Copperfield has been a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and a Living Legend by the US Library of Congress. Keep in mind, that most of these references were found on his Wikipedia page, which means some of them may not be entirely accurate. However, some of his next few accomplishment are some I can confirm. While we were at his show, Copperfield mentioned vanishing and reappearing the Statue of Liberty in 1938 and walking through the Great Wall of China in 1986. If that's not enough to convince you, he also escaped from Alcatraz in 1987 and was involved in disappearing the Orient Express in 1991. At his show, he mentioned planning to make the moon disappear early in 2025. Maybe, he will follow Gru from Despicable Me and try using a shrinking ray. :) 

Overall, if you're ever in Vegas, I'd highly recommend watching his show, and just visiting the MGM Grand, where his shows are held, which definitely are an experience in itself. But now for the moment we've been waiting for! How does he do it? How do magicians and illusionist like David Copperfield perform such wonders on stage?

As British futurist, Arthur Clark once said, "Magic's just science that we don't understand yet." So here's how magician David Kwong breaks it up; into six techniques and principles: 

1)  Mind the Gap Write the Script

2) Load Up

3) Design Free Choice

4) Employ the Familiar

5) Conjure an Out

6) Control the Frame

  David Kwong explains that neuroscientists call this amodal completion. Amodal completion is phenomena found in perception where the human brain fills an imaginary visionary in your brain's visual field. This means that this visionary only exists in your surroundings. Kwong connects this to how magicians call this a mind gap. He then goes on to explain some of the greatest card tricks, such as lifting a volunteer's card from the middle of the deck. He calls this principle, Write the Script. He explains that magicians manipulate the human memory using specific language.

Which is basically an extension to the magician's term of load up. Which is basically prepping all your tricks ahead of time, so that in real time the trick is ready to happen. Let me explain that more clearly by going on to the next principle, design free choice.

This basically means Kwong manipulated the deck. He took out the same card from a 52 decks, so that your only selection could be that one card. This makes the audience member believe that they are in control of the trick. So how do magicians easily trick us? Well magicians are really scientists, so they're always looking for patterns.

The magicians play into the human brain's response to patterns which connects to the principle of employing the familiar. The magicians keep a few different cards at the beginning of the deck, so that the audience member feels that deck is just a normal deck of cards. But what if this doesn't work. Well, magicians have a back up plan to ensure that nothing goes wrong.

You could say that magicians are ultra-prepared scientists and magic is their experiment. Back to the trick, if you chose a different card aside from the majority, here's what would happen you would have a backup for those cards, just in case. Now finally, as well all know magicians excel in the art of misdirection. Whether it's reappearing to escape under a trap door or cutting someone in half, magicians can always control the frame. Kwon describes it as a film director's frame controlling your attention.  

For more resources on magic, check out: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_2mj1pwveo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfDMJN5OPT4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uceMWbjhBho&t=1s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6j6LppM5jDw

Happy Magic! Or should I say science?