Stuart Nolan's Sketchbook

Stuart Nolan's Sketchbook

Last week, to mark the mid-point in their residency, magicians Keiron Kirkland and Stuart Nolan shared the ideas that they have been developing in collaboration with University of Bristol and the Pervasive Media Studio.

 

Both Stuart and Keiron cited Jean Robert-Houdin as an inspiration in their work. In the Nineteenth Century, the watchmaker turned magician, used his technical skills to create clocks with no visible parts and mechanical automatons that might be understood as precursors to robots. With this in mind it is easy to see why Houdin, with his innovative use of technology and reliance on skills from disciplines outside magic, is such an important precedent for our magicians.

 

Stuart introduced us to his fortune telling ideobird, a small rubber bird that plays with Ideomotor Response and Common Coding Theory to create an illusion. When pesky spirits weren’t interrupting via his Victorian spirit bell, Stuart explained how the Ideomotor Response allows us to move a pendulum without appearing to touch it. In collaboration with academics at the University of Bristol, Stuart has developed a way of measuring how good you are at using your Ideomotor Response. This research is now being channelled into the development of OuijaBird, a fortune-telling bird that can analyze your personality, and tell your future.

 

Keiron discussed his Maker Magic project, which aims to bring a touch of the open source mentality and maker culture to the notoriously secretive world of magic. Keiron’s aim is to open up the narratives and presumptions surrounding both magic and technology. As part of this week the world’s first Magic Hack will be taking place in the studio, and tomorrow six more magicians will descend on the Pervasive Media Studio in order to explore the magical and creative possibilities of technology.

 

At the heart of each project were questions on how the use of technology might change the culture of magic. The debate that followed the presentations focused on the ways magic can be understood as a particular form of storytelling, and how narrative and performance are core elements of this. As Stuart summarised: ‘If you think the trick is in the how, then you’ve been misdirected.’

 

There will be more on the magicians later this week when I’ll be blogging about the world’s first Magic Hack, which is taking place in the Pervasive Media Studio.