Pick Some Pixels, Any Pixels: Open Source Illusionist Hacks Magic Into the Future

WORLD’S MOST WIRED Magician Marco Tempest <p co Tempest works on hand motions to integrate into his augmented-reality card trick. As Tempest begins explaining its machinations, it becomes clear why he’s known as the “virtual magician” and not “That guy your grandma saw last week in Vegas.”</p> “re are two interesting things about this: One is that it’s based on a principle that has just recently been discovered as a research subject in psychology, which is <a hge blindness</a>empest says. So basically this kind of shows that magicians were exploring weakness in human perception 100 years before science caught on to it.”</p> Ttrick also is an extension of Tempest’s Microsoft Kinect-enabled augmented reality rig, which uses his gestures to incorporate him into an AR world the audience sees on supplementary screens. His forward-thinking approach to magic has even led to him being named a <a hctor’s Fellow at the MIT Media Lab</a>mpest’s field was, he notes, once ahead of science, and he sees magic as a way of envisioning where new technologies might take us.</p> cs guy invented the future by using magic – that’s kind of my theme right now,” Tempest says.</p>