Abstract
Because of the asymmetries in knowledge regarding the underlying hidden mechanisms as well as because of the importance of intentional deception, entertainment magic is often presented as an exercise in power, manipulation, and control. This article challenges such portrayals and through doing so common presumptions about how secrets are kept. It does so through recounting the experiences of the author as a beginner learning a craft. Regard for the choices and tensions associated with the accomplishment of mutually recognized deception in entertainment magic are marshalled to consider how it involves ‘reciprocal action’ between the audience and the performer. Attending to forms of inter-relation and coordination been all those present will be used to appreciate how intentional concealment and deception can be situationally and jointly accomplished. The stakes and possibilities of that accomplishment will be explored by re-imagining magic as a practice of care.
Highlights
Because of the asymmetries in knowledge regarding the underlying hidden mechanisms as well as because of the importance of intentional deception, entertainment magic is often presented as an exercise in power, manipulation, and control
This article poses the question: How are deception and concealment accomplished in magic? I engage with this question in order to challenge common conceptions of deception and secret keeping as one-directional forms of manipulation
The identification of forms of inter-relation and coordination is used in section five to pose the question: How can magic as an activity be re-imagined? In offering a response to this question, I want to propose a novel framework for conceiving of the practices of deception and secrecy; naming, I wish to ask how modern conjuring can be approached as an activity of caring
Summary
Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/secrecyandsociety Part of the Discourse and Text Linguistics Commons, Other Sociology Commons, Quantitative, Qualitative, Comparative, and Historical Methodologies Commons, Science and Technology Studies Commons, and the Social Psychology and Interaction Commons. "“Pick a Card, Any Card”: Learning to Deceive and Conceal – with Care." Secrecy and Society 2(2).
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