Indistinguishable From... Magic as Interface, Technology, and Tradition

Readings

SES #	TOPICS	READINGS
1	Introduction / Overview	Davis, Erik. “Prestigious Demons 3: Stage Magic and Demonic Apparations.” May 11, 2011. Della Porta, Giambattista. An excerpt from Magia Naturalis.
2	Smoke and Mirrors: Stage Illusion as Storytelling Tool	Tognazzini, Bruce. “Principles, Techniques, and Ethics of Stage Music and Their Application to Human Interface Design.” CHI ‘93 Proceedings of the INTERACT ‘93 and CHI ‘93 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (1993): 355–62. Las Vegas Weekly Staff. “A Man, A Ball, A Hoop, A Bench (and an Alleged Thread)… Teller!,” Las Vegas Weekly, November 30. Singer, Mark. “Secrets of the Magus.” The New Yorker, April 1993. Macknik, Stephen L. and Susana Martinez-Conde. Sleights of Mind: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals About Our Everyday Deceptions. Picador, 2011. ISBN: 9780312611675. ———. “Interview - Expanding Minds.” Kahneman, Daniel. “Thinking Fast and Slow.” Long Now Lecture, 2013. Watch john popper. “Ricky Jay 52 Assistants.” December 4, 2014. YouTube. Optional Magic Camp. Directed by Judd Ehrlich. 2012. Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay. Directed by Molly Bernstein. Color, 88 min. 2012.
3	The NeuroScience of Magic	Melton, H. Keith, and Wallace, Robert. Excerpts from The Official CIA Manual of Trickery and Deception. William Morrow Paperbacks, 2010. ISBN: 9780061725906. Allen, Jonathan. “Deceptionists at War.” Cabinet Magazine, 2007 Louv, Jason. John Dee was the 16th Century’s Real-life Gandalf. Harrington, Brooke. Chapters 1, 3, 4, 8 and 11 in Deception: From Ancient Empires to Internet Dating. Stanford University Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780804756495. [Preview with Google Books] Trivers, Robert. Chapter 16 in Social Evolution. Benjamin-Cummings Publication Company, 1985. ISBN: 9780805385076. Watch The Ghost Army. Directed by Rick Beyer. Color, 68 min. 2013. Optional Josh Reeves. Queen Elizabeth’s Magician – John Dee (2002). March 4, 2010. YouTube. Woolley, Benjamin. The Queen’s Conjurer: The Science and Magic of Dr. John Dee, Adviser to Queen Elizabeth I. Holt Paperbacks, 2002. ISBN: 9780805065107.
4	Magical Warfare: Camouflage & Deception & On Her Majesty’s Occult Service; Dee, Crowley, Maskelyne, and Mulholland	No new readings assigned.
5	Trick++: Present Your Trick with Marco Tempest	Wilson, C. L. Worldbuilding 101 – Making Magic.
6	Magic as System	Rose, David. Enchanted Objects: Design, Human Desire, and the Internet of Things. Scribner, 2014, pp. 75–154. ISBN: 9781476725635. [Preview with Google Books] Green, Penelope. “Putting Magic in the Mundane,” The New York Times, July 2014. Jones, Matt. “The Demon-Haunted World.” Slides, 2009. Arnall, Tim. No to NoUI. 2013.
7	Magic Items: Rings, Swords, and the Internet of Things	No new readings assigned.
8	Midterm Project Presentations	Condition Echo Blueshift (PDF) by the MIT Assassin’s Guild LARP. 2007 Watch Nicolas Marmol. “Black Mirror: Season 2, Episode 1, Be Right Back HDTV x264 FoV.” October 8, 2014. YouTube.
9	Computational Demonology: Bots, Familiars, and Machine Learning	Alan Moore on Magic as Art and Art as Magic, Parts 1 and 2. Montola, Markus, Stenros, Jaakko, and Waern, Annika. Chapter 1 in Pervasive Games: Theory and Design. CRC Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780123748539. Bey, Hakim. Section on Sorcery from The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism. Wikipedia Entry on the Temporary Autonomous Zone.
10	The Magic Circle: Ritual Magick as User Experience Design	Fitzkee, Dariel. Chapters 7, 9, 10, and 12 in Showmanship for Magicians. Lee Jacobs, 1988.
11	Showmanship, Environment, and Illusion	No new readings assigned.
12	Final Project Presentations	No new readings assigned.