Magic has moved from the purview of those with a knack for sleight of hand to those nimble at texting. But not all magicians are excited over the basics of their trade being passed on as easily as the download of an app.

From YouTube-hit magician Shinya pulling kangi from his iPad to David Blaine’s “Street Magic: See A Card” app performed on Ellen DeGeneres’s variety show, magicians are increasingly incorporating our attachment to hand-held devices into their acts.

“The Holy Grail for a magic creator is to make something that is very easy to do but extremely deceptive that you can do with something you always have with you,” Greg Rostami, the man behind magic apps iForce and iPredict, told the Toronto Star. “That is really what prompted me to create what I do now.”

iForce uses a doodle program to let smart-phone-wielding magicians seemingly predict the future. For example, a magician could ask an onlooker to think of their favourite food. While the onlooker ponders what they’d like to eat, the magician writes the onlooker’s future response on their phone’s doodle program screen. The phone is then placed facedown on the table. The onlooker yells out “sushi,” the phone is flipped over and “sushi” is written on the screen — at least that is what appears to happen.

“If a professional magician is out and about, they have to have a deck of cards with them, but normally no one would ever carry a deck of cards. If you and I were to meet and I pulled out a deck of cards, you would think this is a trick,” Rostami, a professional magician turned developer, told the Star. “But a phone is something you always have in your pocket.”

But not all magicians are thanking Rostami for his contribution to their profession. In 2010, a concerted campaign was launched on iTunes to bury iForce by giving it a one-star rating. Some magicians were riled over the app’s attempt to make magic accessible to the masses. Others were incensed that the app was giving away the secrets behind the tricks).

Other magicians aren’t worried by the influx of smart phones and apps.

Self-taught performer turned resident MuchMusic magician Ray Chance points out that while magic has been around for hundreds of years, the tricks that are being performed are pretty much the same. It’s the presentation that has changed — and now that means iPhones.

“I don’t use magic apps.” Chance told the Star. “I don’t want to say: ‘Look at this cool app on my phone.’ I like to say: ‘Here is a coin, I’ll cover it with my hand and look it becomes an iPhone or a BlackBerry’.”

Chance thinks there is a place for smart phones in magic, but only when they are incorporated with other objects. He recalls a magician who used his iPad to pull up the picture of what an audience member was visualizing; in this instance it was a coffee cup. The magician then pulled a real coffee cup out of the iPad before pouring coffee into it from the iPad.

“You want to give people something tangible,” says Chance of the highly successful trick, “something they can feel and touch.”

As for apps revealing the tricks of the trade: “We’ve always had people that reveal how tricks are done, we have YouTube,” Chance told the Star. “Some magicians may get upset, but I don’t think it affects magic as a whole. People still appreciate watching a performance. (With apps) we are teaching people some cool, although not super intricate, tricks that they can do themselves — sharing magic is fine.”

Chance believes the success of magic apps will only grow with amateurs. While he knows of a few professional magicians who use digital technology in their shows, they are careful to keep it behind the scenes.

“More magicians are using technology to assist with certain things, but it is nothing created recently,” he says. “No iPhones, iPads or PDAs.”

Source - [ thestar ]