Tag Archives: sleight of hand

Ferdinando Buscema: magic, wonder, and Boing Boing: Ingenuity

“Ferdinando Buscema: magic, wonder, and Boing Boing: Ingenuity” [HT Phil Legard, also] is a video including features of interest such as Erik Davis’ TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information, David B Metcalfe’s Lullian wheel, Robert Anton Wilson, the art of memory, & more of relevant interest peppered throughout; culminated by an invocation of the accomplishment of the Great Work.

“Ferdinando Buscema is a magic experience designer whose work draws from mechanical engineering, sleight-of-hand, and his explorations of hermetic traditions. We couldn’t have asked for a more astonishing opening presentation at Boing Boing: Ingenuity, our theatrical experience that took place at a former Masonic Lodge in San Francisco on August 18. During his performance, video above, Buscema revealed the final secret of the Illuminati, and guessed my password, which I have since changed. We look forward to future collaborations with Ferdinando whose wizardry and warmth is an inspiration to Happy Mutants everywhere! Get illuminated.”

Kenneth Anger is pulled out of a hat in an article about the cliche “the magic of the movies”

Kenneth Anger is pulled out of a hat in an article about the cliché “the magic of the movies” at “Hugo and the magic of film trickery” by J Hoberman at The Guardian. Aleister Crowley is tangentially mentioned in connection with Anger.

“Many film-makers, including Orson Welles and the avant-gardists Maya Deren, Harry Smith, Stan Brakhage, and Kenneth Anger, identified their practice with magic — albeit in varying ways. Welles had extensive experience as a stage magician and made his last feature, the faux documentary F is For Fake precisely about cinematic sleight of hand; Deren was a serious student of Haitian vodoo; Smith considered his cut and paste animations a form of alchemy; Brakhage referred to “trick” as the medium’s fundamental rule; and Anger was a disciple of Aleister Crowley, who considered making a film akin to casting a spell. (Walt Disney would have agreed.)”

“Movies don’t necessarily record reality but they always construct it. That’s what makes them magical.”