User:Charlie/Graduate Proposal
Project Proposal ~ DRAFT
✧ Draft #1 ✧
✼ 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 personal relation to Magic.
This project is an experimental exploration into the idea of art-based Magic. Informed by varying definitions and understandings of what Magic is, it sets out to analyze and adapt existing concepts and frameworks within Magic by introducing them through artistic expression.
The research project as a whole positions Magic as existing/emerging through connection and participation with the world around us. Meaning, the force of Magic lays in 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".
(..)
These Protocols for Magic would take the shape of a multi-part illustrated publication, separated into different “types” of magic (f.ex.: Artefact magic, textual magic, ritual magic, etc) which would each include the necessary information on the forms of magic presented, as well as applied protocols, worksheets, tutorials or guides.
(...)
❎ Connection to thesis research ❎ art for magic not magic for art ❎
✼ How do you plan to make it? ✼
❎what and how more connected ❎
This project requires a sufficient understanding of Magic as a concept, past and existing practices and its connection to art, i.e. magical art. Both through historic and contemporary examples. Therefore, I shall begin with researching, compiling and documenting theoretical and artistic references (See bibliography for my current reading list) and use these as the basis for creating the protocols.
Prototypes
The protocols themselves will require thorough prototyping and testing, since my main goal is to publish a series of applicable material. This means, throughout the process I plan to regularly seek test groups (i.e. classmates, friends, strangers, etc) to engage with my project and give me feedback on their experiences and perceptions. I would like these tests to both take-place in workshop settings, as well as autonomous testing by individuals. Audience participation and feedback of the prototypes will give me the necessary insight to refine and finalise my project. It will also be valuable information to write about and reflect on in my thesis, which partly investigates Magic as a “mode-of-thinking” and how personal artistic expression may shape someone’s perception and relation to magic.
❎ How do I want to document the research ❎
❎ Workshop & Feedback ❎
Visual Elements & Components
I imagine the publication(s) to contain multiple components, i.e. a table of symbols, a list of correspondences or spell templates that are able to be reused and applied in a variety of ways throughout the protocols and worksheets. As well as other forms of template that may be copied with a printer or by hand and be repurposed/customizable by the reader.
Regarding the visual aesthetic, I have not entirely figured out my plan for it yet.
But prototyping will allow me to experiment with different designs, illustrations and material elements. Until I develop the final visual form.
All printed parts/components of the final publication should have their own twist, but should still follow one visual language.
<--left: I Like these composite folder-like publications. Which could fit the overarching idea of "educational" protocols and worksheets.
✼ What is your timetable? ✼
❎ add months ❎
| Task | Description | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Research: | ~ 1 month - preliminary research
2-3 months - back-and-forth with prototypes
| |
| Prototyping: | 2-4 months - Cyclical testing-reflecting-making | |
| Design: | 1-2 months - throughout prototyping | |
| Finalization: | 1 month |
✼ Why do you want to make it? ✼
(from thesis intro)
(..elaborate on the potential value of Magic as a whole, Magic outside of codified practices and art as a form of personal experimentation)
❎ add own perspective ❎
❎ what fascinates/intrigues me about my research question specifically ❎
Parts of my motivation in investigating this research question emerged from an apparent lack of resources and publications on practicing Magic (whether through art or otherwise) that are separate from, or not directly reflecting, established religions or codified belief systems.
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.
(...)
❎ add own perspective ❎
❎ what fascinates/intrigues me about my research question specifically ❎
✼ Who can help you and how? ✼
❎Add concrete examples/practitioners/researchers working in the same context as me/or in contrast to what I want to do ❎
Sarah Bellisario ✧ "Sarah’s research heuristically explores how symbolic objects are understood and used in magical, spiritual and faith healing practices. It asks how contemporary British practitioners are reimagining and reinterpreting healing and ritual through syncretic assemblages and intercultural processes, as well as exploring the materiality and potency of the objects and artifacts used in these practices and the part they play in transformation and healing through symbolic engagement." (https://sarahbellisario.com/)
Dr. Justin Sledge ✧ "Dr. Sledge’s work engages with Religious Studies specifically in the so-called “Western Esoteric Tradition” or Hermetic Tradition in religious and philosophical thought. In this line of research he seeks to grasps the philosophical commitments which underpin the alleged workings of magic, esoteric influence, spirit possession, alchemy, etc. This field of inquiry brings him primarily into contact with philosophers and intellectuals regrettably disregarded by the modern philosophic canon." (https://www.justinsledge.com/bio) (Esoterica (YouTube channel))
✼ Relation to previous practice ✼
❎The thesis and project as a whole reflects both my life-long fascination with Magic and the Occult, as well as, core components of my own artistic practice. The research question(s)/goals (to be formulated) stems from my interest in subverting existing frameworks as a means to analyze and reflect on them through new perspectives. It also incorporates aspects of learning-through-making and cross-media arts, which reflect my overall goal of creating artistic projects that are accessible and approachable to a variety of audiences outside of the academic or institutional (arts) setting. Hence my focus on art-based Magic, as opposed to magic-based Art.❎
- BA Project (expand..)
- Ornamenta Magica
- Sneaking-in occult symbolism in all my work
- Publications based on supernatural or superstitious themes
- ...
✼ Relation to a larger context ✼
❎❎
- Give more context to history and examples (be careful about big statements without giving context/arguments to prove it)
- Watch out for the phrasing when making statements -> my perspective? whose statement? arguments? ALWAYS give examples
- If based on opinion or intuition be explicit about it
- Expand wider context with concrete example!
❎❎
Art and magic have always been intertwined, since the beginning of time. From cave paintings, carved figurines and ornate ritual tools, decorated shrines and temples, all the way to our modern times. Wood, clay, stone, metal, cloth, bone, glass…plastic..digital screens — Where there is a surface to adorn, magic may be found.
(...)
Magic represents something inherently human. Most general definitions describe Magic as the tapping into an “invisible force”. Whether this force is of supernatural origin or the “simplified” accessing of the human unconscious, I think all views on what Magic is reflect the same human urge of seeking agency and purpose in life. The wish to access, connect and be in control of something outside (or inside) of ourselves in hopes of transforming and overcoming the material condition that bind us to our current state. As such, magical art is its conduit. It exists in the in-between of the tangible and ephemeral state of being. It can be the tool to, the key for, the material representation of magical intention and transformation. Or it can be the ritual, the performance, the experience that connects us to Magic itself.
✼ Bibliography ✼
| Source | Synopsis | Source Form |
|---|---|---|
| J. Sutcliffe ( 2021), “Magic” | On magic's generative relationship with contemporary art practice | 📚⏳(ordered) |
| S. Bellisario (2025), “Contemporary Visions: Refiguring The Esoteric; The Transformational Act of “Making” Magic” | Intersection of art and magic, symbolic value of artistic practice with the purpose of magic | 💾 |
| A. Davies (2023), “Art is Magic” | Intersection of art and magic, experience in a museum setting, contemporary art | 💾 |
| P. E. Moore (2019), "Art and Magick in the 21st Century; Reflections of a Neophyte", TULCA Festival Of Visual Arts, TULCA, Galway, IE. | 🌐 | |
| J. Gilhooly (2010), “Enchanted Objects: Agency in the Magic and Contemporary Art Practice” | Secular” Magic and the agency of art and magic in “Technologies of Enchantment” | 💾 |
| H. Cornish (2022), “Sensing materiality in the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic” | Multi-modal experience/perception of magic practitioners in a Museum space | 💾 |
| L. O., Haute (2023), ' Talismans pour celles qui ne savent pas de quoi ils parlent' | (translation: Talismans for the ones who don't know what they talk about) | 📚 |
| A. Nataf, (1990). 'Les Maîtres de l’occultisme.' , France Loisirs | 📚 | |
| DK (2020), “A History of Magic, Witchcraft and the Occult” | 📚 |
📚 = physical copy 💾 = .pdf 🌐 = online 📌👀 = still need a copy ⏳ = waiting for copy
✼ Process Log ✼ ➭