> Do you and your wife perform together? Are there any clips of yours to watch anywhere?
Yes and sort of. We started a YouTube channel where we were starting to do some short videos for promo purposes. We weren't happy with the quality so we haven't put up anything new in a while. We will probably get back to it when we can find a format that is more "us."
> It's been something that's bothered me over the years - is it really ok to "lie" or "mislead" people for performance reasons? Or to keep secrets from them?
Yup, for me magic is theatre and as long as it is presented as such it's not "lying" any more than a film or a play is presenting a piece of fiction or special fx. Magic is fascinating to me because it is the only art-form that I can think of that plays with epistemology ... how do we know what we know?
And so the point isn't to deceive people but to show something that our brains know is impossible. That's what I like about magic. It is a very intellectual art-form. In my experience, unintelligent people don't tend to like magic as much. And I think this is because you need to be able to recognize and accept the premise of the trick. Meaning there are natural rules governing reality, and a good magic trick is going to show you something that APPEARS to bend those rules. An active, rational mind is able to quickly understand the rules that are being toyed with. A good trick is one where you go "I know that's impossible ... and I know what I saw ... and I know that magic isn't real ... so WTF? HOW!?!?!"
While I don't like entertainment that "preaches", I do like a point of view. And there is a positive implicit message that can come through in a character that communicates: "We as magicians have specialized in how the brain can be misled, and so convincingly that we want to show you this so that the next time someone comes along who is able to offer 'proof' that they can genuinely do something they can't you will remember those tricksters that showed you some shit that you knew was a trick but sure as hell felt like it was real."
Sorry it took me a while to get back to you, but I watched your channel and loved your performances. I especially liked the "red/blue" cards one, a very clever idea to use a dividing line to make it much more visually obvious what's happening (I don't think I've seen that used in any of these style of tricks before!)
Yes and sort of. We started a YouTube channel where we were starting to do some short videos for promo purposes. We weren't happy with the quality so we haven't put up anything new in a while. We will probably get back to it when we can find a format that is more "us."
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrH03pFg-aahazS2srlxRiA
https://www.facebook.com/garandcar/
> It's been something that's bothered me over the years - is it really ok to "lie" or "mislead" people for performance reasons? Or to keep secrets from them?
Yup, for me magic is theatre and as long as it is presented as such it's not "lying" any more than a film or a play is presenting a piece of fiction or special fx. Magic is fascinating to me because it is the only art-form that I can think of that plays with epistemology ... how do we know what we know?
And so the point isn't to deceive people but to show something that our brains know is impossible. That's what I like about magic. It is a very intellectual art-form. In my experience, unintelligent people don't tend to like magic as much. And I think this is because you need to be able to recognize and accept the premise of the trick. Meaning there are natural rules governing reality, and a good magic trick is going to show you something that APPEARS to bend those rules. An active, rational mind is able to quickly understand the rules that are being toyed with. A good trick is one where you go "I know that's impossible ... and I know what I saw ... and I know that magic isn't real ... so WTF? HOW!?!?!"
While I don't like entertainment that "preaches", I do like a point of view. And there is a positive implicit message that can come through in a character that communicates: "We as magicians have specialized in how the brain can be misled, and so convincingly that we want to show you this so that the next time someone comes along who is able to offer 'proof' that they can genuinely do something they can't you will remember those tricksters that showed you some shit that you knew was a trick but sure as hell felt like it was real."