Distorted Perception

Distorted Perception.

True honesty, I came up with this while searching for a nice name to describe my conjuring. 'Drawing Room Deceptions' by Guy Hollingworth is a very beautiful name.

Sometimes I feel when we conjure it is about distorting perception or at least the changing or manipulating of it. Magic is based heavily on psychology and especially perception.

What the audience percieves is the only thing that matters.

We distort their perception of swalllowing needles will kill you.
We distort their perception of a card inserted into the middle cannot be on the top.
We bend reality which actually what they perceive.
Human perception is not always the fact.

That is why magic works. Or at least partly why it works.

Each audience may percieve differently but ultimately what you want them to bring back is the story/recount of the impossibility being done. (so many terms and ways to say it but i think you get it. you want your magic to WORK! whether is it they percieve it as you snap your finger and straighten out the cards, you snap your finger and straighten out the cards and his card came to the top, you snap your fingers and you straighten out the cards but "who cares about my card, how did he straighten out my cards?!")

They may have mixed effects and perceived it as more impossible than it seemed (Wayne Houchin, Art of Magic TRAILER) or perceived only a few elements or ....so much more.

What I'm trying to say is that, the Human Perception is so important in magic and that is basically what we are trying to tackle.




Let's take it further.. Distorted Perception Part 2

This is a thought I had earlier when I was attending my Organisational Behaviour lecture and I learnt of this consequence of a certain concept "distorting perception of self or others".

This is a consequence.

It struck me that, that is what some audience do after they witness a piece of impossibility.

We must admit people of our times are growing smart and well educated. Not likely to be those men, women or children in the 80s or 90s that are less well-informed of math and science. There are those also who just do not like to be fooled or decieved. (even as entertainment to them)

People who do not want to perceive magic as magic or believe in magic tend to create theories and come up with all sorts of explanations as to how the tricks are done. Sometimes they go to the extent that even they have not a single clue as to how it was done, they stand firm and tell you,"I don't believe, I just don't believe."

Don't you feel they are re-distorting their perception?
Their perception of the impossibility that has just happened.

You can't help if they choose not to believe. It could be your fault that you did not do your job well but you can't be blamed entirely if you have done your best.

To try to do something extra to convince them, I believe you will have gone on to CHALLENGE MODE. Which is something undesirable and definitely not what you want to do unless you are just DAMN GOOD or You really do possess supernatural powers.

I believe there is a way to make these people appreciate and accept the art but of course it takes more than text from books, words or anything. I don't know how yet but I hope in the future I could make more people appreciate magic.


Lastly, something I love from Pit Hartling's Card Fictions. Which is Card Fictions the name itself. He mentions about magic being implanting false thoughts into people's mind. Like fictions in storybooks you know. To create the situation of impossiblility does not mean you have to do the impossiblity. You could just make it seem like it. Which is again what I said about perception. What they are going to perceive is not the truth.

Enough said I guess. I'm not very good at words. In the end, if you do not get my point or find them rubbish.

My sincerest apologies.
And I will draft next posts carefully.