Seeing Really Is Believing
August 29, 2008
Post by Kent Wing
I JUST FINISHED READING The Prestige, by Christopher Priest in which one of the main characters, Alfred Borden, describes his particular method of legerdemain, or slight of hand. The special feature of the magician and his audience is the “pact” they enter into with each other. The audience silently agrees to believe as long as the magician performs his trick with the skill that is required to make it believable. Borden terms the agreement, “the pact of acquiescent sorcery”.
As an artist, it’s interesting for me to note the obvious thread in The Prestige that parallels the way magic and art operate on the viewer’s ability to accept what is real. The discussion between what is being proposed inescapably includes some kind of response – the two are not mutually exclusive. I believe this is not only true in cases of art and magic, but in our day-to-day experiences as well.
Over the years I’ve been approached by curious neighbors, friends and others who are aware of what I do. They voluntarily declare they don’t have enough education about art to make a comment or even allow themselves a response. “I don’t know much about art…” they begin. Of course it’s the oldest cliché in the book. They say so apologetically as if something were lacking in them. They assume that they have to be formally “trained” to experience something that seems inaccessible and therefore needs explaining. In many cases however, the explanation, (the legacy of modern art) has a way of replacing the work itself. But really, can you imagine a magician “explaining” a trick to an audience in order for them to feel perfectly delighted by it?
“Are you watching closely?” is the magician’s invitation. What would happen if we allowed ourselves a greater level of trust in just looking – and then looking again? What if the only training we lack is the devotion of learning to see – of paying attention? What is it that connects us to the unexpected, the inexplicable and extraordinary? By what means do we access these intangibles? Personally, I like thinking that seeing really is believing.
“…that we wholly participate.”
August 22, 2008
Post by Kent Wing
IN JUNE OF 2008, while writing the final chapters of his book, Talking to Tesla, An Artist’s Dream Journal, Alex was invited to give a series of informal readings allowing friends and curious readers the opportunity to hear excerpts, ask questions and give responses to the unfinished manuscript. I’m closely associated with the book project and have been delighted by what I hear each time I attend one of these readings. The comments are widely diverse (and sometimes whacky) but deeply honest and often painfully personal.
One night an attractive woman nearing what looked to be in her mid forties stood up and said, “For the past twenty five years I’ve been involved in the day-to-day work of attending to the needs of children and running a household with my husband. It’s good work and I love it, but tonight, from the things you read, I realized there are things in my life I’ve put away and left unattended. It’s as though a private door has opened that has been closed for a long time and reawakened memories, dreams and creative interests that are still important to me.”
I’ve heard something like this on several occasions at different readings. Each time I’m left with a sense of awe at the mystery of what is commonly experienced through the unseen in our private lives—if we allow for it. The renowned, ancient Egyptian scholar, R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz observed, “Esotersim can neither be written nor spoken, and hence cannot be betrayed. One must be prepared to grasp it, to see it, to hear it. This preparation is not a knowing but a being able, and can be acquired only through the effort of the individual himself, by the struggle against all obstacles…” .1
For me this idea of “being able” is expressed in Alex’s own words when he said in a recent interview, “What is exacted from us… is that we wholly participate”.
[1] R.A. Schaller de Lubicz, Esoterism And Symbol, Inner Traditions International, p3