VANISH MAGIC BACK ISSUES Steve Valentine | Page 10
SIX THINKING HATS FOR
THE MAGICIAN
JC SUM
This is a series of articles written for the commercial
magician - that is magicians who charge a
professional fee for their shows & services.
C
reativity guru, Edward De Bono uses his “six thinking hats”
approach as the basis of his creativity techniques. This is
not a direct application of De Bono’s work to magicians but
I adopt a similar approach when choosing illusions and material
for our shows.
If you are a magician, entertainer, storyteller or move maker, you
might find the thoughts insightful and useful.
“Revollusion” is one of my original illusions that features a large
industrial fan as the central prop and is one of the most popular
illusions featured in my book “Urban Illusions”. You can watch
the illusion online here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qe4uQxrkG_w
I had worked on an illusion with a giant industrial fan for quite a
few years, starting in 2003. After years of conceptual designing, I
finally built the illusion that took about 4 months to put together.
It was one of the most complex builds because of the combination of mechanical and electrical engineering coupled with the
actual illusion design. Weight, stability, safety and power were
all things we had to factor in while building the illusion.
When Ning and I presented the illusion in our permanent illusion
show “Ultimate Magic” that ran for 13 months, the illusion sparked
a fairly intense debate on a local magic forum. The question
some magicians and magic enthusiasts seemed to think is very
important and need to know the answer to is: “Is “Revollusion”
an appearance or a penetration?” They seemed to be against
the possible notion that it is a penetration illusion because it did
not look like traditional fan illusions they have seen on YouTube.
I wrote a response in the thread, not as a rebuttal or clarification
to anyone. I respect and believe everyone is entitled to his or her
opinion. That is the point of a forum. But, unfortunately some
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points of view expressed by several were not entirely sound
because they were not founded on good logic.
I wrote the post because I thought there would a small handful of
people reading it who are looking for help in producing a show,
choosing magic for their act or simply improving their craft. Sharing my thought process may help offer different points of views
that these aspiring magicians did not consider. This ultimately
may help them achieve their personal goals in magic.
So, “Is “Revollusion” an appearance or a penetration?”
While I personally do not understand why this is a subject of
debate, the answer is dependent on which “me” you ask. Each
“me” will give you a different answer, based on that “me’s” different
thought processes and needs. Some answers are identical but
are arrived at in a completely different path. In Edward De Bono’s
system, the purpose of applying the six thinking hats in creativity
is to look at problems with different “hats” on to think from different perspectives to brainstorm ideas from all angles. This is the
similarity of my approach here but I use different kinds of “hats”.
So, here are my thought processes when applied to the Revollusion illusion.
The Artist
As an artist, the goal is to create a piece of work that is open to
interpretation by the viewer. Everyone experiences a piece of art
differently. Magic is difficult to be interpreted in different ways,
as it is hard to create magic that is vague yet clear in effect. After
all, as Dai Vernon remarked: “confusion is not magic”.
So, “Revollusion” is a fantastic illusion from this point of view
because it apparently inspires different interpretation, conflicting thoughts and healthy debate. Wow! A goal for many artists.