Dr Who? Wait! What?

During the Magic-All conference, while others went to see enchanted paper airplanes, i saw Dr Matt Pritchard’s lecture. According to his website, Dr Pritchard is a science-magician, something that of course immediately captured my attention. Funny enough that is exactly what his lecture was about. Fooling people’s attention and perception.

Pritchard is an avid poster of TikTok and videos that each play with your senses in a different way. After giving the audience a chance to share their theories (no, it’s not AI or an ingenious video edit) he would take us behind the scenes and show the impressive engineering behind his ideas. Sometimes it’s clever use of perspective. Sometimes it’s blind spot where the spectator can not see although they would swear they saw the whole thing the whole time.

Highlight was the use of some fairly simple electronics to control trapdoors precisely at the right time when a moving blind spot obscured view for just a second and a half. Another truly fascinating thing was the use of seemingly impossible folding techniques like hypercards which Pritchard took to a whole new level. Afterward there was plenty of opportunity to view some of his work displayed in an exhibition that was set up in the back of the theater. Very interesting projects sparking a lot of inspiration. Well worth a visit, or a look online at https://www.youtube.com/c/ScienceMagicShows/videos