HokusPokus  examines illusionistic and performative aspects of magic to explore human perception, senses and movement. It takes inspiration from recent neuroscientific interest in magic as a way of unraveling the relations between vision and movement in human perception. A magician appears on 3 separate screens performing tricks that use sleight-of-hand and deception. How the tricks unfold over time and across the screens depends on the participant’s movements and reactions in the space.

HokusPokus visually references 19th century magic, early cinema and traveling science shows, alluding to the proximity between the history of magic and the genesis of both optical time-based media and  and the brain sciences . The installation continues Michele Barker and Anna Munster’s artistic research into perception, neuroscience and the histories of visual culture and media.

Exhibition History: New Work Grant, Australia Council for the Arts, 2010; Performance Space, Carriageworks Sydney, November 3–26, 2011; Watermans Gallery, London, April 14–May 20, 2012