luis piedrahita

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Brindamour, 1903, printed by the Strobridge Lithographing Company, Cincinnati, Ohio Kellar, 1897, printed by the Strobridge Lithographing Company, Cincinnati, Ohio Adelaide Herrmann, circa 1900, printed by the Metropolitan Printing Co., New York

 

interview

by ALEPH MOLINARI

portrait by OLIVIER ZAHM

 

Is magic always manipulation and illusion? Is it a technique or an art? Is it fake or fabulous?

Spanish magician Luis Piedrahita performs new tricks on live television and reveals them at the end of each show. And people still call it magic! Here he tells the truth about magicians.

 

ALEPH MOLINARI — You’ve been working in television for almost 20 years, creating different tricks almost weekly, which is an enormous creative challenge that requires discipline. How is it possible to create a different trick so many times?

LUIS PIEDRAHITA — I’ve been working on a daily live television show. I started by performing one magic trick every week. Now, I do one a month. I made it a point to avoid doing anything that had been done before. Of course, I allowed myself to use the techniques and principles that belong to the cultural heritage of magic, which are available to all magicians, but I couldn’t tell a story that had already been written or present a piece that had already been shown before.

ALEPH MOLINARI — In that sense, magic works like art because all artists aim to create new works that have never been seen or created before. Would you say that art is a kind of magic?

LUIS PIEDRAHITA — Of course. Is art a type of magic, or is magic a type of art? Art could be a dialogue between two minds of similar complexity. Therefore, only when the artist and the receiver have similar complexity in terms of how they process information does the artistic phenomenon occur. And magic works with an emotion, which is a mystery. Just as the visual artist seeks an aesthetic emotion, and the writer seeks an emotional connection through a story that captivates, the magician seeks mystery. So that you are moved, so that you truly feel something that is mysterious and touches your heart, leaving you on the threshold of something you wish to understand.

ALEPH MOLINARI — So, you don’t just create an illusion — you also create a mystery?

LUIS PIEDRAHITA — Yes. Just as music works with ascending and descending tones, silences and rhythms to create an emotion — or just as cinema uses moving images, and photography uses composition and contrast — magic creates the illusion that the impossible is possible. And that is almost an intellectual contradiction. The impossible is not possible. How are you going to do it? So, we enter a philosophical-logical contradiction. It’s breaking the laws of logic. That has a powerful message, and it’s where I think magic aligns best with art because magic is about freedom. Fear is believing that something terrible might happen to you in the future. It restricts and prevents one from soaring. Hope is the opposite. Hope is believing that something wonderful can happen to you in the future. Both fear and hope operate in the future — neither is real, both are illusions in your mind. When the magician takes a coin, places it in his hand and closes it, before he opens his hand, you hope that something wonderful will happen. That moment before the magician opens his hand is hope.

ALEPH MOLINARI — There’s a sense that people want to believe in the power of magic.

LUIS PIEDRAHITA — Exactly, because people want to believe. And believing that the impossible is possible drives people to do great deeds, build things, and dedicate their lives to a project that might seem pointless because others consider it impossible. In many cultures, people instinctively educate children in magic from the beginning. There are times of the year when magical gifts appear for children, making them believe there is a magical presence and a gap for the impossible to happen.

ALEPH MOLINARI — So, it’s embedded in those societies to believe in the appearance, the act of the possible. And that childlike curiosity connects to the impulse and need to believe in the magical.

LUIS PIEDRAHITA — Yes. Children believe in the magical because, in their world, the magical exists with a certain regularity.

ALEPH MOLINARI — The magic act is fantastic, but what is even more impressive is the scheming behind it. Magic is something you reveal, which could be seen as taboo.

LUIS PIEDRAHITA — Magic has a long tradition of secrecy and has always been cryptic. It’s a place that’s not accessible to everyone. Why? Because those secrets are often simple but can achieve something incredibly powerful. It would be like everyone having an atomic bomb in their home. It’s essential to keep it secret because making magic commonplace annihilates it. If everyone can do it, it stops being magic. That’s why secrecy has been important since the Middle Ages and has always been maintained.

ALEPH MOLINARI — And it’s a power of knowledge, given not just to magicians like you but also to others…

LUIS PIEDRAHITA — It’s a perfect metaphor that knowledge is power because you know something that others don’t, allowing you to do things no one else can.

ALEPH MOLINARI — Which, in the darker sense, can make a robbery or a heist seem like an act of magic.

LUIS PIEDRAHITA — It’s a creative deception.

ALEPH MOLINARI — So, you like to reveal the trick. But even when we know it’s a trick, we still enjoy it. We still believe in the magic, even if you show us the trick.

LUIS PIEDRAHITA — Yes, that’s something I do, but it’s not typical. For what I’m currently doing on TV, I perform a magic effect that blows the mind, like making a car disappear or walking on the ceiling. And then I tell the audience, “Think about how it’s done.” We discuss it and have a debate on how each person thinks it’s done. Then I give them three completely surreal options, and only one is true. They choose, and then I show how I actually did it. That’s my current proposal: deconstructing magic.

ALEPH MOLINARI — So, it’s about pushing the limits. And is magic, for you, linked to technology? Is technology a form of magic?

LUIS PIEDRAHITA — Many magicians use technology and use it very well. But for me, technology is a great enemy of magic. In magic, you need to understand how all the elements work, every single one. We don’t really know how a mobile phone works. Moreover, the fact you can talk to someone in France with this device is already more magical than any trick you can perform. Arthur C. Clarke said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

ALEPH MOLINARI — Would you say magic is always and only a manipulation, or are there also obscure forces at play?

LUIS PIEDRAHITA — Magic is manipulation. I think a precise definition is: magic creates memories of things that didn’t happen. After a magic trick, you are left with a feeling and a memory. And often, over time, the spectator embellishes and enlarges the magic trick, adding even more spectacular memories. Magicians work a lot to make the memory enhance the magic trick so that what you remember is greater than what actually happened.

ALEPH MOLINARI — Even mentalism is a form of manipulation.

LUIS PIEDRAHITA — Of course. One of the tools that magicians use is handling attention and perception. There are a series of psychological acts that people usually do almost without thinking. This allows you to predict thoughts, force objects or cards. Manipulation is a means to achieve an end, which is the magical effect. Then, with that number you thought of, with that word in your mind, with that card you chose, a magician can construct an effect, a situation where something magical or impossible happens.

ALEPH MOLINARI — Do magicians also use hypnotism as a technique?

LUIS PIEDRAHITA — Yes, definitely. I would define hypnosis as a statistical show because only five percent of people enter a state of deep hypnosis, where they see what’s not there and feel what’s not real — hallucinatory phenomena. A larger percentage experience a less spectacular phenomenon, like forgetting numbers or being unable to say a word. Others, an even larger percentage, enter into suggestive phenomena, like not being able to separate their hands or lift their hand off the table. The hypnotist has to find the five percent of people who enter the deeper phenomena. When the audience enters the theater, the magician greets them, looks at them, searches for them. I think it works like dreaming while awake. The hypnotist gets you to dream while awake.

ALEPH MOLINARI — So, there’s an element of the magician measuring the other person. It’s seeing and understanding them. It’s psychological, and it’s physical. It’s a strong power.

LUIS PIEDRAHITA — Yes, it’s about finding them with exercises. With a show, what you’re really doing is looking for people. It seems like there are jokes and magic effects, but in reality there’s a search, which is part of the show. Half of a magic trick is the audience’s reaction. It has to be very empathetic, so everyone feels the same reaction. You have to find and choose the most expressive people. Over time, with experience, you learn to do this, and when you see they are eager to participate, you know it’s good to bring them onstage.

ALEPH MOLINARI — You were telling us the other day about the early history of magic as performance. You mentioned Ancient Egyptian times. Could you tell us about the origins of magic as a spectacle?

LUIS PIEDRAHITA — I’m not a specialist, but I know there’s an ancient papyrus that describes a performance by the magician Dedi in Egypt. One of the effects he performed, which was very visual, was pulling the head off a duck, snapping it back on, and the duck running off. It was a very surprising magic effect. They also did the game with cups, placing a little ball underneath and moving it around until it was gone. And thousands of years later, it’s still like magic because something impossible is happening right in front of your eyes.

ALEPH MOLINARI — Can street magicians or other types of magicians recognize that you’re a magician? By the way you look at things, by the way you approach them.

LUIS PIEDRAHITA — I’d say yes. For example, you can tell if a person is a magician or not by the way they hold a deck of cards. When a magician holds a deck or a coin, you can see it in the hand movements, which are not normal. It’s like a dancer — their fingers are constantly performing ballet.

ALEPH MOLINARI — And there’s also a fraternity, a society of magicians that has rules and respects the secrets and craftsmanship of performing magic. How do these societies work?

LUIS PIEDRAHITA — Until recently, magic was one of the few arts where knowledge was passed down from master to student, like in the old medieval guilds. The master explains, and it’s almost alchemical. When they see the student is ready, they give the next lesson. And when the student surpasses the master, it’s time to look for a new one. There are still some living masters of magic. In Spain, there’s Juan Tamariz. There was Dai Vernon, a master from the United States. There are figures in magic who possess not only technical knowledge but also artistic and spiritual knowledge. It’s not just the technique, the trick, or where to place the finger to move a card, but also how to tell the story. The problem with the Internet is that the first person to learn a secret will spread it online to get views.

ALEPH MOLINARI — That, too, I imagine, has changed magic, in the sense that you see magicians like David Blaine who push the limits of the body as a magical act. And it’s in the space where these two disciplines meet.

LUIS PIEDRAHITA — Exactly. It’s where combining disciplines helps. Indeed, it helps so that no one knows what you just did. Blaine is an artist who can do what no one else can — in physical training, in rehearsal. At the same time, he is a great connoisseur and performer of magic. It’s very difficult to find another magician like David Blaine because he combines the world of stunts with the techniques he knows and performs very well. There’s an English magician named Derren Brown who combines hypnosis techniques with magic techniques, and you never know when he’s doing one thing or the other. The blend is artistic, powerful, and very interesting. Derek DelGaudio combines his knowledge of philosophy, art, and magic to create shows that aren’t just magic, hypnosis, or stunts, but a much stronger mix of the three. What I do in my shows is different. It’s stand-up comedy where suddenly something magical happens, and people go, “Did that just really happen?” You’re laughing, and suddenly, boom, it hits you. It’s through the combination of techniques and disciplines that you manage to stand out and become truly unique.

ALEPH MOLINARI — And is that a way for magic to evolve?

LUIS PIEDRAHITA — The evolution lies in understanding the essence, which is to create the emotion of mystery and the illusion of the impossible. Anyone who achieves this, no matter how they do it, as long as they manage to create the illusion that the impossible is possible, leaves people amazed. Maybe you have to invent a technique or transform an old one until it becomes unrecognizable. If you manage to keep this alive, you will continue to perform magic. Of course, how will it evolve when most of the secrets are revealed? That’s the great challenge.

ALEPH MOLINARI — Do magicians consider Jesus Christ a magician?

LUIS PIEDRAHITA — It could be — because he performed magical effects. For the magical effect to work, there must be a great contrast between the initial situation and the final situation. Jesus Christ achieved this. The initial situation, being dead; the final situation, being resurrected. A wedding without wine and a wedding with wine. Walking on water… He was a great magician.

ALEPH MOLINARI — Would you say that miracles are also forms of magic?

LUIS PIEDRAHITA — I believe that miracles in all cultures and religions are designed to bring a message of hope. Magic speaks of hope. Magic speaks of believing that something wonderful can happen someday, at any time.

ALEPH MOLINARI — So, you have to be very optimistic to be a magician because, without optimism, you can’t transform things.

LUIS PIEDRAHITA — Or perhaps the opposite: so pessimistic that you need to create the impossible because you know that no one else will do it for you.

ALEPH MOLINARI — In these difficult times, for so many reasons — climate change, war, politics — people are living in an unstable period. The first thing that kids learn today is that our ecosystem will be devastated before they grow old. So, maybe magic is an exit door, a sort of irrational hope?

LUIS PIEDRAHITA — Magic is about hope, but it’s also a part of show business. When someone enters a theater to see a magic show, there’s a pact that says: “Okay, this is not real, but we’re going to believe it because we want and perhaps need to believe it.” The problem is when someone comes and says they can tell you something about the future. Everyone wants to listen. When someone says they can tell you something about your hopes and fears, you want to believe it. And the more desperate you are, the easier you are to deceive. If you’re very desperate, then fortune tellers, horoscope readers, and card readers appear. And that is truly a scam because although the magician deceives, the magician tells you from the beginning there is deception. The fortune teller or the one who reads your palms doesn’t tell you it’s a lie.

ALEPH MOLINARI — In a way, magicians are very human because they maintain a personal connection with a person. Even if it’s in a big theater, it’s always you and the magician. It’s a relationship.

LUIS PIEDRAHITA — Yes, it’s a show, it’s show business, but it’s very personal. It’s not virtual, exactly. It’s the opposite of technology, where everything is possible because we manipulate digits, and we are living on a surface, on a screen. What happens with magic is that it’s one to one. Art can happen in the following way: the artist, the spectator, and the artistic phenomenon coincide in the same room. In magic, in live music, in opera, those three elements coincide at the same place and at the same moment. That’s what makes it one to one.

ALEPH MOLINARI — In the 19th century, magic was linked to channeling spirits. So, in a way, magic tricks were also connected to a darker, more satanical side.

LUIS PIEDRAHITA — Yes. Do you know about the relationship between Houdini and spiritism? Magicians wanted to prove that such things didn’t exist. The entire parapsychological phenomena of the 19th and 20th centuries — spiritism, ectoplasm, Ouija boards, holding hands, and summoning the dead — were often a deception to extract money from people who wanted to contact the beyond, often by using magicians’ secrets and techniques. So, although these effects are similar to magic tricks — like moving objects — the magician or illusionist differs from the occultist because the illusionist doesn’t have a malicious intent. My purpose is pure: I’m putting on a show, we are here to have fun and present an artistic phenomenon. I’m not here to deceive you into giving me money because I claim to tell you something your deceased mother is supposedly whispering in my ear. The same goes for Satanism. If something inexplicable happens in a satanic ritual, something beyond the natural, it’s likely they are using illusionist techniques. And they are using them, presumably, for some harmful purpose.

ALEPH MOLINARI — Especially if they call themselves magicians…

LUIS PIEDRAHITA — Yes, and the term “magician” is broad and includes anyone who performs something inexplicable, whether with good or bad intentions. This means that within the category of magicians, we could include palm readers, hypnotists, and mentalists. They are all magicians. When someone performs something inexplicable in an artistic manner — in a theater, for example — I would call that person an illusionist because they work with the illusion of the impossible. We’re dealing with illusions.

ALEPH MOLINARI — Is there always a form of playfulness or humor in magic?

LUIS PIEDRAHITA — Humor greatly assists in magic. Otherwise, there would be too much tension. If I claim I can read your mind and then do it, and if I don’t make a joke to say it was just a trick, people get very nervous. Or when you guess the cards… Without humor, people get really anxious. Humor helps a lot. Most magicians include a bit of comedy, which is the mix I’m currently using in my show, but the other way around: the show is mostly comedy, but there are a couple of hints of magic that make people go: “Wait, what just happened?”

END

 

ALL POSTERS COURTESY OF MIKE CAVENEY’S EGYPTIAN HALL MUSEUM