User:Charlie/Thesis Outline

✧ Thesis Outline ✧

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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?

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Introduction

Protocols for Magic, as the working title for thesis and project, investigates how art and creative expression may shape and form idiosyncratic Magic practices.

Through historic contextualization, analyzing and comparing varying perspectives on Magic, it investigates and puts into question Magic's imposed distinction and complex relationship towards other domains, such as Art, Religion and Science. Particularly focusing on the framing of Magic as being in direct opposition to scientific thought, and wondering how these narratives have and continue to shape our modern relations to Magic.

Within the context of these differing perspectives, the thesis makes an argument for Art and Magic as complementary modes-of-knowledge — In the search to understand what lays at the intersection of Art and Magic as the potential basis for forming novel contemporary modes of practicing Magic.

(art, artists, practices)

Directly informing the material research of the graduation project. Which investigates how creative exercises and artistic play, in the form of protocols, can act as didactic tools to facilitate a user's personal relation to Magic.

The thesis positions Magic and Art as concepts in flux, inherently personal, yet always shaped by the larger systems they exist in. Whether implicit or explicit. Both as distinct modes of knowledge, yet especially in their interconnected forms, Art and Magic become a way to actively create meaning through connection and participation in the world. Art becomes a conduit to Magic. Making art-based Magic, and its counter part, magical Art, always subjective but never neutral.

(MODE OF ADDRESS? + TARGET AUDIENCE)

(REPHRASE) MOTIVATION + METHODOLOGY

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 educator through the creation of new tools and frameworks for engaging with Magic as a practice.

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✧ Chapter #1 ✧

Key components

• Outline different definitions and understandings of Magic (~3 positions)
• Establish the intersection of Art and Magic through examples
• Define my personal position and motivation within the thesis and project

The first chapter is an introduction into different understandings of Magic through three working definitions that I compiled from references. Each definition offers a different perspective, illustrated through examples to give insight into the evolution and function of Magic, and establishes its complex and dynamic relation to Art throughout human history. Additionally, with each perspective as a framework, I may introduce and explain distinct categories and practices within Magic, which will directly inform my analysis of artists, works and art-based magic in chapter two. As well as, form the basis for my Protocols for Magic prototypes within the graduation project.

The first section looks at the idea of Magic as a force. As is most frequently found within general definitions of Magic.

From this perspective, I offer a brief overview of the ancient history of Magic. Using well-known examples from prehistory and past civilizations, as a way to establish the (often disregarded yet ongoing) prevalence of Magic throughout human history and its significant and long-standing relation to human creative expression and art. (Merriam-Webster) (Cambridge)

The second section discusses Magic as a mode-of-thinking. A framework for Magic most represented in academic and scientific positions.

This definition is exemplified by looking at the origin of our modern (and rationalized) concept of Magic through the distinction and separation of Magic from other modes of knowledge — Science and Religion. And how all three modes have evolved, interacted and interconnected in various degrees of reciprocity towards each other, and most crucially, towards art. Positing art as its own mode-of-knowing. Formulating the relation between Magic, Science, Religion and Art, as socio-cultural and political construct, is crucial to understanding where and how contemporary Magic practices originated and function today. (As discussed in Sutcliff e.d., 2021, and Bever, ed. and Styers, ed., 2017)

The third section posits Magic as a connection. A perspective that, in some ways, attempts to synthesize the previous two by defining Magic through the inherently complex and idiosyncratic nature of the human experience, and its participatory relation to the universe.

Through this lens, the force of Magic lays in relational connections and the understanding that the human, body and consciousness, is itself part of greater systems. And can therefore be influenced by and effect influence on "it". Magic is accessed and enacted through engaging with the world around us. Magic is not a way to seek and assign meaning, but instead becomes a way to actively create meaning through connection and participation. Impression and expression. Intention and purpose. (Gosden, 2020) (Bellisario, 2025)

It is within this definition of Magic that I will "anchor" my personal approach to Art and Magic, thesis and project. As I believe this perspective can equally lend itself to Art, as a way to process, interact and create meaning for the complexities of life within the greater systems that make up our world(s).

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✧ Chapter #2 ✧

Key components

• References of art, projects and practitioners
• Art-based Magic vs. magic-based Art
• How intention and purpose inform form and medium

The second chapter looks at a selection of references on contemporary artists and projects, and practitioners outside of the artist category, that engage with Magic through art. With the help of the examples, this chapter discusses the distinction and compares art-based Magic, a terms I use to denote artistic and creative expressions that exist with the expressed purpose of engaging with Magic, and magic-based Art, art that contains or reflects ideas of Magic or magical symbolism, but is created without the expressed purpose of using the artistic medium as a tool to engage with/do/make/cast Magic, directly. Whilst Protocols for Magic at large, focuses on the former idea (art for magical purposes), the latter may also give valuable insight into the relation of Art as the medium for expressing magical thought.

Chapter two may also, similarly to chapter one, differentiate the examples through category-sections. As a way to explore how different concepts within Magic may be practiced or expressed through different artistic mediums, materials and forms. A subject that I will research more deeply in my project. As the basis for it, I aim to look at examples that cover the following categories:

• Performance-based magic-> Rituals and collective action
• Language-based magic -> Spells and poetry
• Craft-based magic -> Artifacts and visual design

(...)

(GIVE 2-3 EXAMPLES) (REFRENCES)

The main purpose of this chapter is to situate my research question within existing artistic practices, and beyond. (...)

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✧ Chapter #3 ✧

Key components

• Applied insights
• Prototyping and reflecting
• Additional references

The third chapter will first reflect on the main take-away-s of the previous two chapters and summarize how it informed my project up to this point.

Following this, chapter three will take on a more back-and-forth approach to project and thesis, as a documentation and critical reflection of my prototyping process towards a final project. 


(DESCRIBE BACK-AND-FORTH AND MODE OF DOCUMENTATION)

• testing/prototyping session with audience
• observation, feedback and reflection
• adjustments to protocols based on feedback

(...)

(CH.3 RELATION TO RESEARCH QUESTION)

• experiment/survey/document how people engage with Magic through art
• potential to change their perspective/relation

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Bibliography & References

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.

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