Here are some classic forces made to work with a smart phone. These are great examples of the Trick++ idea.
Monthly Archives: February 2015
NYTimes makes Josef Albers proud
Ok, so they don’t mention Josef Albers at all, but it would have been a great opportunity to. Although Josef was not a magician, he did dedicate his life to teaching others about how colors interact with each other through our perception. If you aren’t familiar with his work, check it out http://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300115956.
Also, here is the NYTimes breakdown of the dress illusion…
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/02/28/science/white-or-blue-dress.html?_r=0
How’s that after-image going for you?
So, neurologically speaking, what color IS this dress? And can you tell me why there’s confusion? Try scrolling from the top down and then closing your eyes, opening them, and scrolling from the bottom up.
Can you say, “Neural Adaptation?” There. I knew you could.
Marco Tempest: A magical tale (with augmented reality)
The story of what magic is, how it entertains us and how it highlights our humanity . Your truly using a gesture based augmented reality machine.
Video courtesy of TED.com
Behind-the-Scenes Documentary vimeo.com/magician/storymagicsetup
More about Marco Tempest marcotempest.com
Apollo Robbins: Pickpocket and Attention Expert
Don’t miss the excellent New Yorker profile on him as well: A Pickpocket’s Tale on the New Yorker.
Sonos Logo that animates when scrolled using moire-effect
Here’s the Sonos logo I mentioned in class. Scroll the page and you can see that the moire effect in its design makes it look animated.
Bot and Dolly
Projection Mapping done well with industrial motion control (MoCo) robots.
As discussed in class, this is a little disingenuous, as the only perfect view of the illusion is that of the camera. A foot or two off to any side of the camera/projector rig and the illusion begins to slip. So while this makes an excellent video it wouldn’t be as impressive as a live experience.
Here’s a making of, in which they name check the types or classifications of illusions.
Traveling Coin practice
Practicing the traveling coin. Operative word “practice”.
Quantum Visualization Practice
I’m thinking a lot about creative visualization in the context of this class (quantum states of mind over matter, manifesting alternate realities in the minds eye):
I practiced visualization techniques over the weekend and I was shocked how well this worked to improve my performance.
Can’t wait to share my experience!
An Evolutionary Tale
I recently became quite interested in how evolution and evolutionary values can be applied to different areas of design, art, and culture. One aspect that specifically interests me is the value of variation and how evolving systems benefit from a certain amount of entropy. They benefit so much, that things such as mutations or sexual reproduction, which introduces chance are part of much of the animal kingdom.
In this card trick, I try to introduce the possibility of variation or surviving recessive traits through a story of the 52 card deck, a 4 family population 🙂
I could really use some more rehearsing, and my deck got a bit water logged (bad idea to practice by the sink), but I am excited to tell a story about an area I am passionate through a medium that I would otherwise turn away from. Although perhaps common tools of deception are not the best way to warm a crowd to controversial scientific topics… More to come 🙂
-jb