talkmagic.co.uk

Perhaps the rise of mentalism and cold reading in the mainstream world of magic is some kind of kick-back against all the gimmicks that are available these days. With all the technology and gimmicks and money in the world, you still can't beat the effect of staring deep into a person's eyes and telling them what they're thinking.

The question is an extremely interesting one.

The amount of impact electronics will have on magic largely depends which specific field of magic we are talking about. ie Mentalism clearly has more scope for this technology whilst sponge magic does not.

Also, even if magic remains largely immune to electronics, the public may still attribute effects to electronic technolgy in the absence of any other explanation thay can come up with.

People have a tendency to over-engineer the solutions to tricks anyway and increasingly they give bizarre technological reasons for something that can be explained with something as basic as card peek, a force, etc

I recently showed my friend an impromptu card trick with a normal spectator shuffled deck which used a bold card peeking method to give the effect that you have memorised an entire deck in 5 seconds with photographic memory.
He asked if I had a secret hidden camera in the room.


I believe that in mentalism, electronics could have huge impact, some of which will be negative as people will just put down predicitions and readings to secret cameras or ''Midas'' type metal detecting technology.

Having said this, modern society has an increasing tendency to believe in the genuine power of pyschological body language reading mumbo-jumbo of the type Derren Brown has exploited and therefore the use of technology can be hidden with the right presentation.

Ultimately so much can already be achieved without recourse to electronics that I don't believe it will alter the core principles of magic.

Card forces, falseshuffles, sleight of hand will always exist and be fundamental components of the genral art. As we all know the actual trick is only 10-20% of the act. The rest is down to personality, showmanship and audience conditioning. This will never change.

I'm certain that a simple £3 TT will always produce just as much of a wonderful effect as a sophisiticated electronic device.[/i]

i forsee two types of magician:-

1) technomages who embrace technology and use it to there advantage.
2) purists who will refuse to use technology and rely on traditions and sleights passed down to selected members.

there will be a place for both in our brave new world.

magicdiscoman wrote:I forsee two types of magician:-

1) technomages who embrace technology and use it to there advantage.
2) purists who will refuse to use technology and rely on traditions and sleights passed down to selected members.

there will be a place for both in our brave new world.

So what like some sort of lame Sci-Fi book, cool.

So what like some sort of lame Sci-Fi book, cool.

can you tell I'm a fan of scifi then.

most of your popular old style magicians were scientists or embraced new technology, houdin, houbini, slidini, and amman (sp) to name but a few.