Responding to an article by Jason Leddington in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism.

This article is an intriguing read and lead me through the thought process with ease while positing interesting questions to posit if you are looking to further the conversation. While in the graduate program at UNC Chapel Hill, I had an interesting conversation with a peer about the relationship between the fine arts and magic. We struggled to articulate what makes magic, ‘magic’ in order to apply its properties to our work. This article is one I wish had existed to aid that conversation. Leddington makes a clear point that magic, however important, “is badly understood”.

Leddington outlines some important misconceptions, such as that magicians work to fool the audience, but the trickery is a means to an end. The magician works to create an illusion. The second misconception leads to an important point, that the topic of the supernatural is best left to the fictional narrative as magicians need you to engage in a futile search for solutions, explanations for how the seemingly impossible act could be possible. The supernatural provides an explanation that disengages the viewer from actively participating.

Art historian Carrie Lambert-Beatty has presented a definition of the term ‘parafiction’ in relation to a genre of art, which has been garnished with a buddy term: parafact. The oversimplification is that artworks that deal with the gap between fiction and fact lean either towards the gradient of fiction blending into fact (parafiction) or fact blending into fiction (parafact). In the case of magic, Leddington’s outline of magic places it squarely in the world of parafact. My initial assumption would have been to place magic in the opposite category, but magic functions best when it begins in the factual, real world and draws you into fiction. Magicians achieve this by presenting the impossible as just that, impossible. The viewer is expected to look and disbelieve it is possible and will feel validated if the magic fails. The magical element arises when the magician then represents the impossibility by systematically eliminating all possible causes to explain the act.

““So, while the experience of fiction requires imaginative success, the experience of magic consists in a kind of imaginative failure.””

— Jason Leddington

After reading this article, there are are two terms that, should I find the time, I would like to pursue to generate synonymous links to the fine arts in general and to my own process:

Alief: In this article, this term comes with complicated subtext to allow for paths of more detailed research that is not followed in this article. The benefit is that Leddington leads up to this door shows us the room and turns away to continue the more general conversation regarding magic’s definition. Connecting alief with magic, could also serve connections to the fine arts. I can see how artists would prefer viewers to experience alief then in front of their work. For a viewer to experience a tension between what they believe to be true and what they feel in the moment.

Aporia: A state of bafflement becomes a temporary stopping point for the viewer, although they are left with an interlocutor to ensure the experience is not forgotten. When the magic performance ends the viewer is ideally left with no explanations for what they experience but is challenged by the experience to let it churn in the deep algorithms of the subconscious mind. Leddington leaves us with a statement that when we seek magic, we seek “an aporetic experience for its own sake.” The use of aporia in the context of magic ties magic to traditional philosophy, which gives a metaphorical bridge to the fine arts.

As a painter, I must learn from successful magicians. How can I paint in such a way that a viewer sees factual information, then gradually comes to realize the impossibility of the work to be left in an aporetic state?