This piece is called Consensus, in reference to the idea of consensus reality, the concept that we all experience the world differently, and for something to be real we all have to agree on it. As a queer woman I see people who think my identity, which I assure you is real, is a pure fabrication, whereas as a magician I can quite happily convince a room full of people that an object has disappeared, changed or repaired itself, and I know for a fact that none of those things happened.
Over the course of this biscuit every picture I’ve taken has represented the grey area between authenticity and deception. The hands, based on my Claude Cahun inspired mirror photo, show how displaying some things conceals others. Whilst the other figures are taken from my earlier attempt to emulate the work of Holly Revell using modern equipment with which clever long or multiple exposure techniques are pretty much impossible, but allow for multiple photographs to be stitched together with relative ease. That piece was about the dichotomy between the rather introverted activity of learning a performance art and the apparent exuberance of displaying it.
For my final photo I wanted to invoke both of these ideas into a triptych of triples. It is a combination of 3 source photographs, all of which are technically just photographs of a mirror.
In the centre I am holding 3 coins, only one of which is visible in reflection, in the left pose I have 3 linking rings, and in the right pose I have a set of 3 books, specifically the Art Of Astonishment trilogy by Paul Harris, which were hugely inspirational to me in my first years becoming a magician.
Thus my authentic self is a consensus of all of these things, some seen by my audience, some seen by friends and colleagues, and some seen only by me, but none of them are the complete picture in isolation.
Stacy Smith
she/her
Stacy Smith is a professional software engineer and amateur magician who joined the queer creatives course during the pandemic as a lifeline to something outside of her house, and has stuck with it as a source of inspiration, education and opportunities for self expression.
A lover of puzzles and illusions, she tries to incorporate uncertainty into her work through the use of elements such as misleading framing, unreliable narration, unusual perspectives, and manipulation of time.
Stacy lives in Cambridge with her wife and dog. In the copious free time afforded to her by indefinite medical leave from her job, she writes video games, short stories and an altogether too wordy blog about the minutiae of magic culture.
You can find links to all of her work at www.The4thCircle.co.uk and you may even understand some of it.