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. Which include parts of my thesis research, general information on Magic I collected, and the Protocols for Magic. With each section containing one or several related protocols for art-based Magic[1], 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? ✦
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 [2], Sympathetic Magic[3], 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. Which 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. Which 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).
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[4], collective correspondences and the making of talismans.
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...
✦ What is your timetable? ✦
| Timeframe | Dates & Deadlines | Tasks |
|---|---|---|
| September
- December |
21 Nov:
1 Dec: Try-Out Night 8 Dec: Assessment 19 Dec: Thesis Chapter 1 (Draft) |
|
| January
- February |
31 Jan: XPUB ZineFair
13 Feb: Thesis Draft 1 |
|
| March
- April |
6 Mar: Thesis Draft 2
20 Mar: Second readers' comments 17 April: THESIS FINAL |
|
| May
- July |
Project assessmentGraduation 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[1] 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. As 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 gives enables me to actively investigate other people's perception of Art and Magic as an intersection. Since I have always felt there to be 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[5], 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[4].
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.
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.
✦ 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[6]), 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.
(...)
(Understanding Separation of religion, science, art and magic -> forming different perspectives to defining magic)
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. And 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, 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[6] movements and believes originated, and equally continue to uphold post-colonial, racist and oppressive attitudes. Which permeate the popular Western notions of Magic. (❎)
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.
As (...) writes in (...), for most of society, 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. In this way, Magic has been consigned to be an aesthetic object of consumption, rather than "something one does".
(...) (non-commodified anti capitalist and embodied forms of Magic through Art)
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). (❎)
(...) Art and crafts, bricolage.. "everyday" folk magic, urban magic etc
(...) 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.
(...) closing words✧ References ✧
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.
Sutcliffe, J ( 2021). Magic. MIT Press, Whitechapel Gallery. London, United Kingdom.
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.
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.
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: http://www.padraicmoore.com/art-and-magick-in-the-21st-century-reflections-of-a-neophyte/ [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.
Speltz, A. (1980). Ornamenten- van prehistorie tot en met biedermeier. Gaade. LOCATION
✧ Glossary ✧
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Art-based Magic: A term I use to distinguish between artistic and creative expressions that exist with the expressed purpose of engaging with Magic, as opposed to what I may call 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.
- ↑ High and low Magic: A classification which denotes forms of Magic through their practitioners' position and function within a societal structure and hierarchy. "High" forms of Magic may be practiced by priests/priestesses, shamans, oracles or others in elite positions. This may include ceremonial and ritual magic, complex divination methods and other more "scholarly"/learned forms of Magic. Often practiced in specialized, or institutional settings. "Low" magic, also referred to as folk-magic or natural Magic, can be simpler divination methods, charms and spells and/or other more "accessible" forms of Magic. Low Magic is most often practiced in the domestic sphere or as part of cultural and folkloric traditions.
- ↑ Sympathetic Magic: An umbrella-term that is sometimes used to categorize magical believes (ranging from "primitive"/ancient to contemporary examples) which are based on the concept of "like produces like, or that an effect resembles its cause" — The Law of Similarity. In other words, the believe that one may effect Magic onto an object, person or state by invoking its resemblance through imitation (visual/aesthetic representation) or correspondence (symbolic representation/association).
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Sigil: Pictorial images/drawings used to visually represent ideas and intentions for magical use.
- ↑ Bricolage: (...)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Magic-adjacent: I consider spiritualism, witchcraft, occultism, esotericism, astrology and divinatory practices, as well as, certain forms of folklore and fantasy, to be adjacent to or containing ideas of Magic.