Magic as Art

I'm currently working on another write-up requested by fellow magician Shawn Mullins, which will be up this weekend.  In the meantime, I didn't want to go too long without an update, so I here offer this short muse.

In addition to magic and mentalism, I'm heavily involved in a number of other mediums and have been trying to achieve a deeper understanding of the language of each in order to form a cohesive methodology for delivering artistic statements in each.  To put it simply, I'm putting on my beret and stroking my beard as I try to figure out how to be artsier.  Magic has a hard time being taken seriously as an art in large part because it's used purely as entertainment.  And I have no problem with entertainment as long as it doesn't claim to be anything else.  What bothers me is that magic is called an art, but few do anything particularly artistic.

Magic and mentalism sit in an interesting place in that they share a language with two different media.  Specifically, theater and gaming.  Obviously, I disagree with those who don't believe games are art, but you didn't come here to listen to me bang on about that.  Whatever your preconceived notions, please suspend them long enough to hear me out.  Magic is rooted very heavily in theatrical tradition, but it also has an aspect that only one other medium shares: interactivity.  There is no 4th wall unless one returns to the playlets of the Maskelynes in Egypt Hall.  It's especially true of close-up magic.  It puzzles me that so few magicians seek to use this more effectively.

Interactivity presents a set of unique challenges, but it also gives us a very interesting way to tell a story.  The video game Portal used it to great effect in deconstructing the medium of gaming itself.  But I can't think of any magicians who have made particularly good use of this.  Theatrically, I uphold David Blaine as a great example of using magic as art due to his career thesis that moments of wonderment, amazement, and the childlike certainty that the impossible is only a matter of patience belongs to all people regardless of race, class, culture, or social standing.  Yet few use magic and mentalism interactively to achieve artistic effect.  I could make a case for some of the works of Rick Maue and Docc Hilford, but that seems like a relatively short list when you consider the size of the industry.

I realize that art means different things to different people, but I do believe that it would be fruitful for magicians to step back, consider the language of our medium, and ask whether we're effectively using it or not.