A Taxonomy of (A)rts Magic Circle in public locations.
Here I expand aspects of the Magic Circle posited by Huizinga, Caillois, Salen and Zimmerman, Suits. I include the original elements that have contributed to game studies, but add additional elements that develops it for visual arts in public locations. Some of my additions may cancel out certain of the traditional Magic Circle elements depending on the works examined. I examine the use of this (a)rts Magic Circle, to generate this area of occurrence, and the Lusory contract to facilitate interactions. So using the Magic Circle in an art context with people as a means to generate encounters and encourage social relations in public space.
Traditional Magic Circle Properties | |
(S)pace apart | Either real or virtual where the action of the experience happens set aside from the world around but iwthin it. |
(O)wn Rules Lusory | Game specific rules to generate the play experience, often though obstacles making a task inefficient. |
(Cl)osed boundary | A strong threshold around the activity |
(L)abours | Activities Inside the Circle having no real world effect outside of the circle |
(P)rotected | Participants in the Circle feel safe and free to act out differently to normal, allocated by the social zone of acceptance the Circle creates without fear of condemnation and consequence free |
(V)oluntary | Entry and exit |
(T)ime | Has a set beginning and ending |
(U)ncertainty | Open and unknown outcomes from the gameplay |
Additionality - for (A)rts Magic Circle | |
(Vi)sibility | The participants through their actions in the circle are brought to the fore in the location. |
(A)mplification | Here the structure of the circle and the activities within, can cause the actions or the objects in te circle experience to have a larger effect ahn if carried out with no circle. So the circle causes the activity to affect the surroundings, by the way it is set up and structured. |
(G)ravitational | The activity of those in the circle act as a spur to draw in further participants. This is a circle with a soft boundary. |
(Dir)ected | Towards an end predetermined outcome |
(Un)expected | This is when the game action occurs in a space where such an occurrence is unusual, those in the experience and create the action are doing so against the location. Those who come upon the action are unaware at first that there is a planned activity. |
(A)rtists and (a)rtworks: The elements from the circle used, are inserted into the description in the appropriate section for illustration of when that aspect is active.
(S)pace apart (O)wn Rules Lusory (V)oluntary (Vi)sibility (Tr)ansformative (G)ravitational (Dir)ected (Un)expected
This work is a permanent projection piece at an airport terminal. (S) (Un) There is a mix of present day footage and footage from the past, some of it dating back decades and black and white, all filmed around the area. As participants approach the wall projection, the images on the wall change, if they go across the screen, a screen wipe follows them, revealing other and new footage, so their moves influence the way the images are projected.(O) If they move away and then towards the screen, the footage dissolves and as they approach the screen it reveals more and more past images, and if they move away the images start to return to the present day. (Dir) (V) Participants begin to almost dance with the screen, seeing the various historical and the shows of present time changing and liquefying before them. (Vi) (Tr) Some correspond their moves so different aspects of the projection are effected and the screen is segmented with aspects of the past and the present shots. (G)
Scott Snibbe - Boundary Functions (1998)
(S)pace apart (O)wn Rules Lusory (Cl)osed boundary (L)abours (P)rotected (V)oluntary (Vi)sibility (G)ravitational
This is a gallery based work. (P) A largish square tiles area about 15ft across that is slightly raised up from the floor around. (S) (Cl) Participants can walk upon the surface. As people walk upon the work, lines form on the surface of the area, around the people. (V) It dissects the space according to their movement and the numbers of the people on the surface. It only becomes operational when more than one person is in the space. (O) As people walk around, the lines move and reform segmenting the space. The lines actualise the idea of personal space. As more people join the area, the lines multiply and the space around the individuals decrease. (G) Participants can try and manipulate the lines to create patterns, or reach out to touch each other when feeling isolated by the lines. It attempts to visaulise the relationships of the people to each other upon the surface. (L) (Vi)
Clare Patey - Empathy Museum, Walk a Mile in My shoes
(S)pace apart (O)wn Rules Lusory (Cl)osed boundary (P)rotected (T)ime
(Vi)sibility (Tr)ansformative (Dir)ected (Un)expected
In this work, a giant shoe box is placed in an environment, (Cl) (Vi) (Tr) and within it are a series of donated shoes, which have an accompanying soundtrack of the person who wore them and their personal thoughts, that can be heard through headphones. Participants enter the shoe box installation, and choose a shoe with the accompanying soundtrack, and are then directed to leave the space and walk if they can a mile with the person's shoes on (T) while listening to their personal stories and thoughts on headphones. (O) (S) The work seeks to elicit empathy and understanding for the person's shoes that are worn by the wearer participants. (P) (Dir) Their actions wearing odd fitting shoes creates a preformative effect as they set off around the public space. (Un)
Serena Korda - W.A.M.A.
(S)pace apart (O)wn Rules Lusory (P)rotected (Vi)sibility (Dir)ected
W.A.M.A, ‘Works as Monuments Archive’ was created for and with Barton Hill’s estate. This is an area with an industrial heritage, the movements of a choreography performed by members of the community was collected from moves used in the workplace though interviews and workshops. (O) The final work is performed with a maypole, by people from the estate. (Vi) (Dir) This was to bring to the fore, the industrial heritage that is now covered over and hidden by the new developed Estate. The moves were then incorporated into a may pole work, performed on a green space in the housing estate, with the participants in costumes. They paraded down the streets, to the green space, followed by the community and then enacted this new maypole dance based on the movement devised from their everyday and working movements. (S)
(S)pace apart (Cl)osed boundary (P)rotected (V)oluntary (T)ime (Vi)sibility (Tr)ansformative (Dir)ected
A street in in New York was cordoned off signalling the area of the experience as separate and safe (P) (S). A long yellow fluorescent line was placed along the area, (Cl) (M) forming the threshold that people crossed to get close to the work on the stoops of the houses. The work started at exactly 4.30 (T). On the stoops groups of women sat, and were undertaking conversations, these were free flowing, but had been prearranged and loosely structured beforehand.(Dir) The stoops came alive with the conversations (Af) a vibrant hub of debate about issues important to the participants and the artist. (Vi) There was further dressing of the street, yellow flowers were placed near the stoops, allowing spatial transformation, the women wore yellow pashminas, and were in structured formations (M) bringing them to the fore and raising their visibility including the subjects they spoke on. The audience wandered from home to home, listening in on the conversations. The audience are drawn into the stoops by the conversations. Each stoop can be seen as it’s own Circle, working within the large circle of the cordoned off street.
Gustavo Artigas: Viva Le Resistance, (2004)
(S)pace apart (O)wn Rules Lusory (Cl)osed boundary (V)oluntary (T)ime (Dir)ected
The Magic Circle is physically embodied, In an outdoor courtyard, by participants who create a closed circle by holding hands, (S) (Cl). A participant grasps an electric element, (Af) which sends a current around the circle’s participants. This causes steady shock that makes the participants squirm and laugh, the participant who releases first, breaking the circle, is the loser (O) This reaction to the current is the response the artist wants (D). The actions in the circle have a very definite beginning, linking hands and end, letting go of hands (T). The actions of the participants, creates the visual. This work has aspects of the liminal working within the Magic Circle construct, the participants accept the contract to be shocked. This play within the Circle has an element of sanctioned danger, while still cloaked by the security of game play, the physical pain causing visible excitement in the participants of authorised danger. The Circle allows those inside his game to test their mettle and ability to endure the shock. In joining hands creating the Magic Circle they also enable the danger, it is almost a reversal of the Magic Circle rules, as safety is only restored when the circuit of the circle is broken. The normal idea of hand holding in a circle that can be seen as a uplifting idea, one of friendship, here is turned into the loop that allows the current to charge. There is a decision to join the circle, and that is voluntary, (V) but to leave is to lose
David Belt: Glassphemy.
(S)pace apart (O)wn Rules Lusor (Cl)osed boundary (P)rotected (V)oluntary (T)ime (Vi)sibility (Af)fordance (Tr)ansformative (Dir)ected
In this work the act of Recycling is made into a gamified art activity. A 20ft space is cordoned off by feet high perspex transparent walls in an empty lot in Brooklyn (S). There is a high perch that participants stand on, and below at far end stand friends and family of the participants, behind another high sheet of transparent perspex(M). Participants from the high perch are encouraged to throw the bottles as hard as they can, against the lower screen behind which are their friends(P) (V) (Af) (Dir). The aggression that they show at throwing the bottles, is diffused and consequence free. Lights come on and flash as the bottles hit the back screen bringing a visibility to the actions, and to the task of recycling (Vi). There is a transformation in the space though the box. Participants have to enter the space to throw the bottles, crossing the threshold. Their is a playful release, and the participants themselves add a competitive gamified challenges by aiming at their friends behind the glass, and to make as loud a noise as possible with their bottles.
Jenny L Chowdhury: The Cell Atlantic Cell-Booth
(S)pace apart (O)wn Rules Lusory (Cl)osed boundary (P)rotected (T)ime (Vi)sibility (Dir)ected (V)oluntary (Un)expected
In this work a large canvas backpack is worn, and when making a phone call, it can be unpacked, and erected as a portable phone booth in which to make the call (S) (Af) (Un) Only the caller has access to the space as it encloses just them(Cl). The erection of the booth an obstacle to be overcome to make the call (O). The performance lasts the time of the call. (T). The erection of the booth creates a space apart, with a boundary to cross in order to make the call. While the call is private, the fact you are in a portable cloth phone booth draws attention from those around. (P) There is a paradox here, as the booth supposedly allows the person calling more privacy, but actually makes them more visible to the public around (Vi). This plays ironically on the notion of people making public calls, and how they can become the centre of attention, oblivious to the people around. (M) (Dir)
Lottie Child: Street Training Manual
(O)wn Rules Lusory (P)rotected (Af)fordance (V)oluntary (L)abours (G)ravitational (Un)expected
In her street training experience in Manchester commissioned by Cube (2009), Child and her participants have all volunteered beforehand to be part of the work, (V) The area is not demarcated physically in anyway but a Circle is drawn that effects changes to the objects in the vicinity of the play. They take traffic cones and use them as megaphones, allowing them to amplify their voices, (Un) (AF) the cones move from dormant to active, this is also true for a lamp post they choose to spin around, or a puddle they activate by drawing in it with their feet (O). The activity is for itself, with no outside gain. (L) Though the game structures can be used to make visible street actions by groups in a new way allowing them to play out publicly without fear of prejudice or the law. The participants do feel safe, to act out in a new way, and to explore playful activities, and to undertake tasks that can be seen as anti-social but sanctioned by the game (P) While there is a core group, others who show an interest while the activities are happening are invited to participate or join in, even showing the group their own variations for the group to follow. (G) So in this way, her circle is a soft boundary, with people around able to cross the threshold and become part of the gameplay.
Spencer Tunick Sea of Hull (2017)
(S)pace apart (O)wn Rules Lusory (Cl)osed boundary (P)rotected (V)oluntary (T)ime (Vi)sibility (Un)expected (Dir)ected
In this work for Hull and their year of Culture, (2016) hundreds of people who had put forwards their names beforehand to be included (V) were painted blue representing water flowing through Hull landmarks (Vi). The work is an arena apart from the everyday, as the public space is cordoned off. (S) It is a safe zone, with agreed upon rules, and a start and a finish point in time (P) (T). Though the nudity happens in the public areas, the people within the work feel that the Contract between them and the artist sanctions the nudity and there are rules they must follow as in how they group and stand. (O) (D) The Magic CIrcle provides a space, secure from attack or ridicule. (arts) Magic Circle sanctions the nudity, which would normally be seen as an act of subversion, or criminality. The power of the people en masse reaches out and takes in the surrounding environment and brings it under the thrall of the artwork (M), They have passed over the threshold, and once inside the painted nude body becomes accepted and part of the environment. (Cl)
Anthony Gormley: Us and Them
(S)pace apart (Vi)sibility (Cl)osed boundary (P)rotected (V)oluntary (T)ime (Vi)sibility (U)ncertainty
This work takes place on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, so the participants are raised high above the ground around. (S) (Cl) The participants have a set time, (T) to do whatever they wish to on the plinth, (Af) (U) Participants feel free to act out, (P) they need to due to the business of the space, and the height difference, they need to make actions as large as possible, sometimes working with objects they bought along like flags etc. Many participants took advantage of the opportunity to publicise themselves, or groups and charities or political views (Vi). There were many more applicants than places, so they were chosen through a draw. (V)
Nova Jing: Archepellio
(S)pace apart (Vi)sibility (Af)fordance (V)oluntary (P)rotected (G)ravitational (U)ncertainty (L)abours (Un)expected
Participants in the middle of small plastic green mobile desert islands about 6 ft square, move around the city, there is no end destination, and the participants just make there way around. (Un) (L) (S) (U) The islands stand out from the urban areas they move through and give a strange otherworldly quality to the participants (P) (Vi) The Public are invited to come up to the participants and write a message to the world, that is be stored in bottles the islands have. (Un) (G) .
Francis Alÿs: Guards
(Vi)sibility (Un)expected (L)abours (G)ravitational (Dir)ected (O)wn Rules Lusory (Cl)osed boundary
64 Coldstream army guards are positioned separately in a small area of London. They march around and try to find the other guards, the uniformed regimented figures at odds with the urban area around them, (Vi) (Un) when they find other guards they join up, their marching numbers swell, making them more visible and audible to the other separate guards to find and giving them a greater visual and audible presence in the space in which they are. (D) (G) (L). They accept the lusory rules where they can only find others through sight and listening for the footfalls, they use no technology and cannot shout out to find each other. (O)
The Theatre of Mistakes: The Street (1975)
(S)pace apart (O)wn Rules (G)ravitational (Af)fordance (Vi)sibility (Tr)ansformative (Dir)ected (P)rotected (L)abours
A work carried out on a single area, Ascham Street in London. (S) The street became the performance area. A number of performers situated in houses on one side of the street would close their windows in unison when someone on the other side of the street walked by and people walking by on the other side of the street would cause the performers to open the windows in unison. In this way passers by could see how their actions affected the windows. (O) (G) (Af) The performers in the windows all delivered in unison parts of conversations they had gathered from local people in the area having a choral effect. Also much of the furniture of the people who lived in the houses were put out onto the street for the length of the performance so there was an externalisation of the interiors out onto the street (Vi) (Tr) . There was a group of children who moved in slow motion chasing a slow ice cream van. (P) (Dir) (L)
Heath Bunting: BorderXing Guide (2002)
(S)pace apart (O)wn Rules (Af)fordance (Tr)ansformative (P)rotected (L)abours (U)ncertainty (Cl)osed boundary
This artwork is a website of walks which cross numerous borders unimpeded by governmental interference. These walks are documented by the artist and put on the website for participants to use (Af) in reenacting the same walks. (S) Participants can recreate the crossings without interference by following the routes outlined. (P) (U) (L) To view the website you had to either go to one of the beginning points of a walk and log on, or ask to become a trusted client. (Cl) (O) In this way, the work makes the web site hard to access and the borders easier to cross. (Tr)
Brown and Garrett: Cloud (2012)
(S)pace apart (O)wn Rules (Af)fordance (Tr)ansformative (P)rotected (L)abours (U)ncertainty (G)ravitational
In the installation CLOUD. six thousand light bulbs were packed together to create a cloud like shape, that floated in a public square in Calgary Canada as part of the Nuit Blanche festival, with pull cords hanging down. The bulbs are a combination of new and burnt out incandescent light bulbs around the outside of the work, inside there is a series of fluorescent lights that actually cast the light. The work is supported by a single central shaft in the centre, the participants stand below the Clowd, looking up and pulling the cords to make separate lights go on and off. The work at night is visible from all around the city’s public plaza. At times the crowd around the Cloud, coordinate their actions to make all the lights in the cloud go off, and then all the lights in the cloud go on together, in the video documentation this causes a large whoop from participants.
(S)pace apart (O)wn Rules (Tr)ansformative (P)rotected (U)ncertainty (L)abours (Cl)osed boundary (V)oluntary (Vi)sibility
Made In New Zeland a large inflatable sculptural space, that is colourful and works against the urban space in which it is set. (S) (Tr) It has its own game rules (O) for teams of people to compete against each other, while it is in situ. (Cl) (Vi) The work challenges teams of 6 players to engage competitively inside and on the surface. The attacking team take sprint over the surface which is unstable in an attempt to launch themselves into the belly of the inflatable though an opening. (P) The defending team, manipulate ropes below to contort the surface and increase the undulation of the surface and the difficulty. (U) (Af) (L) The two teams, one below and above, are not visible to each other. The work references Christchurch earthquakes.
Laurence Payot - People Pavillion.
(S)pace apart (O)wn Rules Lusory (Un)expected (P)rotected (Vi)sibility (G)ravitational (Cl)osed boundary
The various participants, have a single large interconnecting piece each upon their backs. (Af) When a number of the participants come together, and join up, as a form of Jigsaw, (O) they create an enclosed space (S). The generated space is cordoned off and people around are invited into the open protected centre (G). The actions inside are concealed by the bodies wearing the shapes, (P) allowing a greater play to occur unseen by the public, who view the exterior of the just created, transient space. (Cl) (Un) The size of the objects and the numbers of people wearing them create a high profile for the work in the public space where it occurs. (Vi)
Temporary Services—“11 People 16 Spaces (2006)
(S)pace apart (O)wn Rules Lusory (Un)expected (P)rotected (Vi)sibility (T)ime (U)ncertainty
Temporary Services the publisher undertook a workshop with students from Columbia College in Chicago. 11 People 16 Spaces is a workshop art piece that became a pamphlet. In this work the students are given the task of occupying various public spaces with their bodies,(S) (Un) (O) and creating new configurations of the space. So they stick their heads in mail boxes, and laid themselves across building site structures and cramm into a small sapce. The challenge is for tem to do the objective as a group. (O) The way they interpreted the space, and used their bodies, was up to the group to negotiate (U) All of this in areas where there is high density of onlookers. (VI) The occupation was undertaken for a short period of time (T) Many of the way they interact may seem redicujouse, but their serious demeanour, and the way that they situate themselves as a group, allows it to have a gravitas, the action in response to the task affirming it as architectural and artistic in some way.
(S)pace apart (O)wn Rules Lusory (Tr)ansformative (P)rotected (Vi)sibility (T)ime (Cl)osed boundary (L)abours
In this work a large canvas like single piece of material is placed over a number of people, (S) often as many as 60. There are slits in this large piece of material where people’s head porturde. (P) Participants hands movements were curtailed, and the bodies concealed. Visibility for some was difficult, in the centre of the canvas,and they had to rely on those around for safe passage and to make the trip. Those further on the edge of the canvas acting as guides. Working together the group had to make their way and learn to act collectively to achieve the final destination, to move as a single unit. The people then brought together by the matreerial, travel some distance as a contained group. (L) (T) (V) The work has been made a number times, from the mid sixties onwards. Originally it was made in 68 with children in a Favela near Rio in brazil.
Johann van der schijff - The arm wrestling podium (2007)
(S)pace apart (O)wn Rules Lusory (Tr)ansformative (Vi)sibility (T)ime (P)rotected (U)ncertainty (Dir)ected (Un)expected (G)ravitational
A sculptural cast object that acts as a podium, raised off the ground a small height, (S) which affords two people at a time to participate in a standing up arm wrestling competition. Participants step up, and with one hand wrestle, and the other clasps a handle. The podium is situated in public space, (Vi) and is on wheels so it can go around to various locations. (Tr) The work is cited in South Africa in Johannesburg (Un) and it is constructed to encourage people to peacefully, though still struggle, to settle disputes. (O) (Dir) (U) The work has upon it the rules of arm wrestling, (T) so participants are encouraged to join in and recieve the game rules and the way to use the work though these rules. It is an object that calls people over to see how it operates. (Vi) (G) People taking part, become performers, bringing other people in to watch and to join in. The work, set up the Magic Circle of an arena for the activity to happen, in a manner it ironically provides a structured space specifically designed for the game activity.
Candy Chang - The Atlas of Tomorrow
(S)pace apart (O)wn Rules Lusory (Tr)ansformative (Vi)sibility (U)ncertainty (Dir)ected (G)ravitational (P)rotected
The work is wall based, and installed on the side of a building in Philadelphia USA, and is in some sense a mural work with interactive features. (Tr) (Vi) The work uses a spinning wheel within the mural, that the public can turn. (U) Around it is a 64 stories written out across the wall representing stories taken from "I Ching" the divination. Passersby can spin the wheel and use its outcomes to address something in their lives. (U) (Dir) The wheel when it stops has a character that connects to a story, and that story when read by the participant provides some kind of way for them to arrive at an outcome for their dilemma. The work is a piece that provides those around to address their problems in a philosophical manner and to encourage discussion. It’s large drawings and distinctive spinning wheel, draws in the public, to come over and see how the work connects the different aspects of it’s design. (G) Though flat on the wall it casts out an aura of though in the area it occurs. (S)
(S)pace apart (O)wn Rules Lusory (Tr)ansformative (Vi)sibility (U)ncertainty (G)ravitational (L)abours
Commissioned for Light City Baltimore 2016. The work is ten tall light towers. (Tr) The towers and their colours change in response to the amount of activity enacted by the people around them, (Vi) and the number of people that engage with them. (S) (O) The work moves from a color blue to a hot red in response to the activities. The colour change is either by motion of those around or by the numbers grouped near them. The individuals moving and engaging to change the colours, encourages others over, (G) who then see how their presences also causes an effect. (L) The work tries to see how the colour change, and the awareness of this activity forms and effects social groupings around the work, and the ways that people move and interact with the lights to cause the colour change among the towers. (U). The colors of the towers can change in each tower as it is made of a number of units, as well as the different towers being different colours.
Illegal Art - Personal space
(S)pace apart (O)wn Rules Lusory (Cl)osed boundary (P)rotected (U)ncertainty (Vi)sibility (Tr)ansformative
This work uses hazzard tape, which is normally used for erecting ready made barriers around crime scene or building work. This tape replaces the normal hazard warning with the words “PERSONAL SPACE”. (Tr) It is put up in various busy locations in towns, and opens up the area for people to cross into the space and take time out, (S) (O) (Cl) or to converse with others on a deeper level than normal. It tries to create an area where people can interact differently (P) Participants are encouraged to use the space as they wish. (U)
Sharilyn Neidhardt - Human scale chess
(S)pace apart (O)wn Rules Lusory (Cl)osed boundary (P)rotected (L)abours (T)ime (D)irected (U)nexpected
Two chess masters playing in a space together have their moves broadcast through phone messages to participants who are dressed as the chess pieces (D) and act out the moves appropriate to their assumed game piece role. (T) (O) So each participant is a different piece. (Cl) The city blocks are mapped out to create the board, so players can make the moves, by walking across the city using maps that articulate the moves. (S) (U) When a piece is taken, participants act this out in a role playing manner with exaggerated combative poses. (P) (L) It allows the participants who make themselves the pieces in a game, and experience the game from a piece’s perspective.
Anthony Schrag - Five a Side
(S)pace apart (O)wn Rules Lusory (L)abours (P)rotected (T)ime (U)ncertainty (Cl)osed boundary (Tr)ansformative (G)ravitational (Dir)ected
This work was created in a aperk A central Hexagon is formed of rope, and from it five separate rope strands stretch out. There is also a hexagonal drawn on the floor in chalk. (Tr) Each end of the rope is held by a number of people, who are called in to join up from those around, (S) when all 5 ropes at angles to each other are take up, the competition begins, (Cl) all five ropes are pulled against each other by the participants, till eventually the central hexagon moves far enough away from it’s marking below, and one side wins. (Dir) (O) (L) (T) (U) This is all done with good humour by participants, and teams made up of a cross section of ages. (P) (G)