Stage Magic: A Site to Study the Interplay of People and Technology? By Dr Wally Smith (University of Melbourne)

Chair: Dr Catelijne Coopmans (Tembusu College, NUS)

Friday 12 July 2013, 4:00pm

Master’s Common Room, Level 3,Tower Block, Tembusu College, NUS

Abstract

This talk will examine the apparatus and performance of stage magic and will ask what it reveals about the interplay of people and technology. The main source of evidence is a small body of instructional writings relatings to a modern style of conjuring that emerged in the 19th century, a time when conjuring eagerly appropriated new optical, mechanical and electrical technologies. Drawing on Lucy Suchman’s work, conjuring is interpreted here as an early form of simulation in general to be deceptive. The account traces how magicians working in the modern style developed a naturalistic manner of dramatic representation becomes the thing that it purports to represent. Allied to this were new deceptive techniques of dissimulation took the form of apparently transparent apparatus and stage sets, and a fabricated natural manner of performance. The talk will consider the general significance of conjuring’s format of inverted theatre, and its related techniques of dissimulation, for simulations and technologies in general.

About speaker

Wally Smith is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Conjuring and Information Systems at The University of Melbourne. His teaching and research interest are in sociotechnical systems and the design of interactive technologies. Current research projects are on the use of social media for smoking cessation, and design of a mobile apps for student fieldwork. Related to the present talk, he is interested in way technologies displayed and performed.

All are welcome.