When I was a kid, I was really into magic. Like, really into it. I did shows all the way up through college, and got paid well (at times) to do it. But its been 10 years since I’ve done anything serious and I’m not well practiced. So, I don’t talk about it often, lest I be bombarded with “show me a trick” every time the topic comes up.
Although its been a while, I haven’t lost my intrigue in magic. I still visit magic forums from time-to-time, and I follow two or three blogs that keep me up-to-date with what is happening in the magic scene (yup, there is pretty thriving ‘magic scene’).
Something I’ve noticed of late is the incorporation of the iPad into magic acts and made-for-Youtube magic performances. This video was posted when the iPad was fairly new and now has over 5 millions views on YouTube! Think about how much creative thinking goes into coming up with something like this.
He followed up with this clever video that was posted 2 days before the iPad 3 release. I like his spin… he claimed to know what the features of the new iPad 3 would be, and did a bunch of magic with the iPad demonstrating them.
And this video, posted just last week, of 2 magicians who were hired to build an act promoting Stockholm. The time it takes to create, code, and rehearse this routine must be immense, so I imagine this 3 minute act cost the customer a pretty penny.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53_qvMQfvOE
I could go on a long diatribe about how the lines between magic and technology on blurring, as technology makes more and more things possible, it eliminates a lot of magic tricks that would be simply dismissed as ‘ahhh, he just used a computer to do that’. I do like that some pioneering magicians are incorporating technology into their act, and the iPad (and iPhone) seem to be the perfect devises to do that.
