User:Charlie/Graduate Proposal

✧ Project Proposal ✧

✦ What do you want to make? ✦

Protocols for Magic aims to create introductory frameworks for the development of idiosyncratic Magic practices through artistic expression. In other words, this project investigates how creative exercises and artistic play, in the form of protocols, can act as didactic tools to facilitate a user's/audience's personal relation to Magic.

The desired end result of this research is to create a compounded publication. Possibly in the form of a booklet, workbook and other print-based objects. Including parts of my thesis research, general information on Magic I collected, and the Protocols for Magic. Each section contains one or several related protocols for art-based Magic, as a way to explore different types, forms, practices, within Magic, through different perspectives and artistic mediums (e.g.: visual vs. written, experimental vs. structured, individual vs. collective, etc).

✦ How do you plan to make it? ✦

The intertwined amphiptere ✧ symbolizing my interest in combining art and magic in my practice. An emblem I have used in previous projects and publications.

① The basis of the project is partially informed by theoretical research, done through the thesis. Such as the different approaches to defining Magic, and it's relation to Art. Including existing classifications of different types, forms and practices within Magic (e.g.: High vs. low Magic , Sympathetic Magic, etc). It looks at existing projects, artistic practices and artists who work within the concept of Magic, for inspiration and as a way to situate the project within a contemporary context and artistic field. As well as, other texts and resources on more specific practices and tools, that may not be discussed in depth within the thesis. These references are used and adapted to form Protocols for Magic. I.e. exercises, prompts and templates that help introduce and let a user explore different aspects of Magic through art and creativity.

② The second and most important part of the project is the prototyping of the Protocols. This means: Actively experimenting with and testing a large variety of protocols with an audience/user(s). Whether through individual test sessions or through workshops, both including a formalized feedback section. Using the findings and feedback to reflect on:

• how people engage with the protocols
• how different artistic mediums can intersect with different forms of Magic
• how the protocols can act as a learning tool/support
• how it may potentially shape people's own relation and understanding of Magic, as a whole

③ The third step is the documentation of my research through archiving the results on my dedicated wiki-pages (f.ex.: Protocols for Magic and Process Log).

The insights gained from the prototypes (process, observations, feedback, reflections, etc) will contribute to my thesis and research question, specifically discussed in Chapter 3, as a way to answer: What lays at the intersection of Art and Magic, and how can it serve as a ground for forming novel and idiosyncratic Magic practices through creative expression?

First Prototypes..

Prototype#1 ✧ Magic Circle Worksheet ✧

This prototype includes 3 components: A worksheet with a spell (interpretative sentence), a magic key (diagraph-like magic circle with explanation) and a table of symbols (abstract terms as symbols).

Protocol:

✧ Transform this spell into a Magic circle using the given key and table of symbols ✧

The main goal of this prototype was to test out the base idea of "doing Magic" in an exercise-like format.

The magic key and circle work with an internal/abstracted logic. The user is prompted to interpret the given sentence/spell intuitively. The table of symbols adds another degree of abstraction by breaking down the sentence into abstract terms/symbols.

Prototype#2 ✧ Workshop ✧

The main goal of this workshop was to investigate how to introduce people to different Magic practices/concept through descriptions, examples, analogies and most importantly: Active protocols for individual and collective experimentation. This workshop therefore includes a variety of prototype-ideas for Magic protocols.

The protocols explored spell-writing, sigils, collective correspondences and the making of talismans.

➭ Protocols for Magic

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Prototype#3+ ✧ Try-Out Night (to come..) ✧

For the upcoming Try-Out Night, I plan on creating 3 to 4 more worksheet-type prototypes for visitors to try and give feedback on. Some current ideas include:

• Protocols for Poetic Spell-Writing..
• Protocols for Magic Circles 2.0..
• Protocols for Dialectic Hex..
• Protocols for Altarcation..

Design and Visual Components...

Some current visual inspiration for a composited publication..

✦ What is your timetable? ✦

Timeframe	Dates & Deadlines	Tasks
September - December	21 Nov: Graduate Proposal Thesis Outline 1 Dec: Try-Out Night 8 Dec: Assessment 19 Dec: Thesis Chapter 1 (Draft)	Preliminary research < 21 Nov ☑ Workshop#1 - 13 Oct ☑ First Prototypes < 21 Nov ☑ Additional Prototypes < 1 Dec Theory outline for prototypes < 19 Dec (w/ thesis chapter 1) (optional: Workshop 2 < 19 Dec)
January - February	31 Jan: XPUB ZineFair 13 Feb: Thesis Draft 1	Workshop#2/#3 < 31 Jan (xpub zinefair) Publication & Design Prototype #1 < 31 Jan Add. artistic references < 13 Feb (w/ thesis chapter 2) Documentation and reflection (Draft) < 13 Feb (w/ thesis chapter 3) Protocols prototype ++ < 17 Apr
March - April	6 Mar: Thesis Draft 2 20 Mar: Second readers' comments 17 April: THESIS FINAL	Formulate main take-away(s) & reflections < 6 Mar Publication & Design Prototype #2 < 17 Apr Formulate goals and plans post thesis < 20 Mar - 17 Apr
May - July	Project assessmentGraduation show	FINALIZE PROTOCOLS & PUBLICATION < Grad show

✦ Why do you want to make it? ✦

Through the Protocols for Magic research, I aim to deepen my own understanding and relation to Magic through Art. But also to directly connect this artistic research with a public audience, as an artist and designer, by taking on the role of facilitator and guide through the creation of new tools and frameworks for engaging with Magic as a practice.

I have been fascinated with ideas of Magic, the Occult and anything whimsical or fantastical, since childhood. And as I've developed as an artist and illustrator, it has always continued to inform my artistic practice in varying ways. Whether through creating magical objects and artifacts through art and crafting, or incorporating aspects of Magic and Occultism in my personal and professional work. In other words, practicing art-based Magic and magic-based Art in varying ways, myself. A fascination which I would like to share through this project.

However, parts of my motivation in investigating this research question also emerged from an apparent lack of readily available resources and publications on practicing Magic that are separate from, or not directly reflecting, established religions or codified belief systems (e.g. Wicca, New Age spiritualism, Neo-Pagan beliefs, etc). Despite my deep interest in Magic and learning about many existing movements and beliefs around it, from past to present, prior to this project, I have always approached the practice of Magic with a degree of skepticism and reluctance towards any form of dogma. Especially in the form of superstition or supernatural beliefs relating Magic to higher powers/forces/entities, etc.

As such, this project is aimed at an audience who may feel similarly to Magic as myself, and who may have an interest in exploring their personal relationship to and interpretation of what Magic is, or can be. Although I hope that my project can be potentially valuable to anyone, whatever their preexisting notions of Magic is. The project investigates how Art and creative expression can be a conduit to Magic, as an introductory practice or supplementary method to existing practices.

As such, Protocols for Magic enables me to actively investigate other people's perception of Art and Magic as an intersection. Since I have always felt there is an inherent link between Art and Magic, as a mode of expression and inquiry that leaves a lot of space for personal subjectivity and purpose. In the words of Sarah Bellisario:

"[...] it may be the very act of designing and making the object and the considerations of its form, decoration, and materials that comprise it that enliven and empower it. It is a marriage of art and meaning but with the purpose of magical function. Symbolic and ritual occult artifacts help people to connect with the magic they aim to undertake, and the art of making can be a symbolic and transformational ritual in itself." (Bellisario, 2025, p.404 )

✦ Who can help you and how? ✦

• Sarah Bellisario ✧ Is a freelance artist and illustrator, as well as an academic researcher investigating art as a healing practice, and magic through art.
• Fellow XPUB students ✧ Are great research subjects and give useful feedback
• Lidia Pereira ✧ Supervisor, great giver of feedback, references and recommendations

✧ I would like to find and get in contact with more people as I go.. ✧

✦ Relation to previous practice ✦

My artistic practice often focuses on merging cross-media art (mix-and-matching analog and digital tools) with illustration and print-making techniques. Experimenting with a lot of different mediums and methods to create images, stories and experiences.

These are elements which I want to incorporate into this project in the form of bricolage, crafting, and possibly other forms of low-tech and accessible artistic mediums. As one cebtral goal of this project, and my practice as a whole, is to create and facilitate interaction with art that is accessible and approachable to a variety of audiences outside of the academic or institutional (arts) setting.

The project also reflects aspects of SI#25 Sounds Of Marmalade and SI#26 3DS-Zine projects' methodology, wherein we took existing tools and concepts, and investigated/explored/adapted/re-contextualized it, with an audience. — Subverting existing frameworks to explore them through a new perspective or context.

Some previous projects..

✧ Ornamenta Magica ✧

A risograph publication which presents intricate paper-cuts as a form of Sigil Magic.

Paper ornaments are a simple method for exploring the interpretative and evocative potential of ornamental abstraction. With one piece of paper and a cutter, they can be as simple or complicated as one wants.

Ornamental shapes may carry meaning through visual codes and composition, and can therefore function in similar ways to sigils. Ornaments speak to our intuitive and emotional interpretations of shapes and forms through aesthetics.

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✧ Artficss ✧

CSS-based ornament generator as an "alternative divination tool". A way of interpreting and divining through randomized constellations of shapes and colors. (An ongoing project in slow progress.)

Similar to the previous project, this project aims to speak to intuitive symbolic associations.

✧ Almanac'34 ✧ Special Issue 27

Almanacs' have a long tradition within divination practices like astrology, and nature based magical practices. It posed as an interesting framework for subverting the idea of divination into speculative fiction, to address and counter real life/real time social issues and concerns that came up throughout the Special Issue. This publication presents a collection of predictions for the year 2034, based on fellow classmates collected hopes and wishes for the future. It reflects the fears and worries of today, but twists them to become messages of hopefulness, even if at times absurd or unrealistic.

➭ Almanac'34

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✦ Relation to a larger context ✦

Protocols for Magic partly situates itself within the context of the current "revival" and interest in Magic (as an umbrella term for many adjacent concepts), found within the Arts, popular culture and (Western) society at large. (Charlesworth, 2022) (Moore, 2019) As well as the greater interconnected history of Magic and Art.

While the project doesn't intend to answer the hows-and-whys of this supposed revival (I leave that to the anthropologists and social sciences), it does aim to question how changing perceptions and relations towards Magic has changed over time. And, how these fluctuating positions may be reflected in contemporary artists' and practitioners' attempts at merging Art and Magic as interconnected practices today.

The history and evolution of the modern conceptualization of Magic is a topic discussed within the first chapter of the thesis, by comparing three definitions of Magic (which I compiled from references). The most crucial being the "Magic as a mode-of-thought" position, which most often defines Magic through its strict separation from Art, Religion and Science. Reflecting on this approach to Magic, especially in regards to Science, is particularly important to situating my position and personal motivation.

The framing of Magic as being in complete opposition to Science and absolute rationality, has played an important role in the propagation of Western Colonialism and convergent triumph of the Capitalist economic system. This century-old "campaign" against Magic, by defining it as a nefarious form of superstition, delusion and "primitivism", has actively contributed to political and economic objectives seeking social and cultural cohesion, as a way to uphold the idea of white-western supremacy. It has actively contributed to the continued legitimization of racialized oppression and exploitation of non-Western cultures and beliefs. (Topics discussed in-depth in the works of Bever and Styers, 2017, ass well as Gosden, 2020, and Sutcliff, 2021.)

I believe that understanding these historical contexts, that have actively shaped our common associations with Magic, are particularly important to the project's strive towards novel contemporary Magic practices. While these contexts also aid to understand how and where many past-and-present magic-adjacent movements and believes originated, and equally continue to uphold post-colonial and extractive attitudes. Which permeate the popular Western notions of Magic. (Gottlieb, 2017) Which is why I find it important to incorporate an educational/informative component in the protocols, and project as a whole. Striving to avoid further cultivating and reproducing these tendencies.

I see direct parallels in the ways in which certain forms of art and design, including folk arts and crafts, and what would be considered "low" magic (it's in the name), or folk magic, have historically been excluded from institutional spaces and pushed to the margins of "lesser" domains. A marginalization of (artistic and magical) practices which has been and continues to be reinforced through repression and stigmatization (again based in colonial, patriarchal and capitalist ideologies).

Within the public sphere and popular culture, Art has become a proxy to engaging with ideas of Magic. Especially through the medium of fiction and entertainment media, as they don't necessarily require the audience to question and "forgo" rationality and its embedded aversion to Magic as superstitious nonsense. Which has contributed to Magic's recasting as an aesthetic object of consumption, rather than "something one does" or actively engages in. (Sutcliffe, 2021)

This contributes to another important context the project incorporates. Which is a focus on maintaining an anti-capitalist and anti-commodification attitude towards Magic, especially in regards to Art, artistic mediums and materials.

Which is why most of my protocols/prototypes so far have gravitates towards a bricolage-like approach. using accessible materials and found objects, and easy methods of crafting. To center the experience of "doing" Magic through crafts, rather than the creation of a pristine art work. And focusing on utilizing Arts inclination towards subjectivity, and potential as a mode for personal inquiry, to reflect on ones own idea and potential biases towards Magic. In that same vain, Magic may bring a sense of directed purpose and meaning to ones artistic expression. While simultaneously putting into perspective the visual codes and symbolic associations we tend to make subconsciously.

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✧ References ✧

Bellisario, S. (2025). Contemporary Visions: Refiguring The Esoteric; The Transformational Act of “Making” Magic.Journal of Design History, Volume 37, Issue 4. Oxford University Press. Oxford, United Kingdom.

Bever, E. (ed.), Styers, R. (ed.) (2017). Magic in the Modern World: Strategies of Repression and Legitimization. Penn State University Press, Magic in History series. Pennsylvania, United States.

Charlesworth, J.J. (2022). The Return of Magic in Art. ArtReview. Available at: https://artreview.com/the-return-of-magic-in-art/ [Accessed 19 Nov. 2025].

Gosden, C. (2020). Magic: A History: From Alchemy to Witchcraft, from the Ice Age to the Present. Penguin. London, United Kingdom.

Gottlieb, K. (2017). Cultural Appropriation in Contemporary Neopaganism and Witchcraft. University of Maine, Honors College. Maine, United States.

Moore, P. E. (2019). Art and Magick in the 21st Century; Reflections of a Neophyte. TULCA Festival Of Visual Arts, TULCA, Galway, IE. Available at: http://www.padraicmoore.com/art-and-magick-in-the-21st-century-reflections-of-a-neophyte/ [Accessed 15 Nov. 2025].

Sutcliffe, J. (ed.) ( 2021). Magic. MIT Press, Whitechapel Gallery. London, United Kingdom.

✧ Bibliography ✧

Magic History - Forms of Magic

Gosden, C (2020). Magic: A History: From Alchemy to Witchcraft, from the Ice Age to the Present. Penguin. London, United Kingdom.

DK (2020). A History of Magic, Witchcraft and the Occult. Dorling Kindersley Ltd. London, United Kingdom.

Williams, L. (2025). Compendium Of The Occult - Arcane Artefacts, Magic Rituals and Sacred Symbolism. Thames & Hudson. London, United Kingdom.

Magic in theory and function

Bever, E., Styers, R. (2017). Magic in the Modern World: Strategies of Repression and Legitimization. Penn State University Press, Magic in History series. Pennsylvania, United States.

Stevens, P. Jr. (2023). Rethinking the Anthropology of Magic and Witchcraft: Inherently Human. Routledge. Oxfordshire, United Kingdom.

Sorensen, J. (2006). A Cognitive Theory of Magic. Alta Mira Press, Bloomsbury Publishing. London, United Kingdom.

The Intersection of Magic & Art

Sutcliffe, J ( 2021). Magic. MIT Press, Whitechapel Gallery. London, United Kingdom.

Davies, A. (2023). Art is Magic. University of New South Wales. Sydney, Australia.

Moore, P. E. (2019). Art and Magick in the 21st Century; Reflections of a Neophyte. TULCA Festival Of Visual Arts, TULCA, Galway, IE. Available at: http://www.padraicmoore.com/art-and-magick-in-the-21st-century-reflections-of-a-neophyte/ [Accessed 15 Nov. 2025].

Charlesworth, J.J. (2022). The Return of Magic in Art. ArtReview. Available at: https://artreview.com/the-return-of-magic-in-art/ [Accessed 19 Nov. 2025].

Gilhooly, J. (2010). Enchanted Objects: Agency in the Magic and Contemporary Art Practice. University for the Creative Arts, University of Kent. Canterbury, United Kingdom.

Cornish, H. (2022). Sensing materiality in the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic. Goldsmiths, University of London, Pomegranate Vol.23. Sheffield, United Kingdom.

Art & Artists

Bellisario, S. (2025). Contemporary Visions: Refiguring The Esoteric; The Transformational Act of “Making” Magic. Journal of Design History, Volume 37, Issue 4. Oxford University Press. Oxford, United Kingdom.

Haute, L. O. (2023). <talismans pour celles qui ne savent pas de quoi ils parlent. Maison de la Poésie de Rennes. Paris, France.

✧ Glossary ✧