When Mugwumpin set out to explore the intersections between science and magic this season, the question of how scientific thought and performance overlapped was in the front of all of our minds. Scientists, seemingly be nature, are a much more introverted and reclusive bunch than say, actors. The intellectual tangents and queries they pursue are often sparked by relationships with the inanimate – rather than an engagement with the public sphere. This is not to say that some scientists are not lovers of spotlights. But it does bring into question how the public sphere effects inspiration and action in science, and how the concept of magic might fit into the crevice between science and theatrical performance.

This year so far, we’ve looked at the public and private personalities of Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, Guglielmo Marconi, and Alan Moore among others. Where their work intersected with public knowledge and opinion is interesting on a whole slew of levels. How their inventions and theories can be inspected and probed by a theatre company through public performance is a very exciting question.

Apart from the basic premise – where do Magic and Science come into parallel? Where to they cross one another? A larger question arises regarding the public and private, where creation actually comes from, and what, if anything, performance has to add this conversation. It’s a big spherical crystal of thought and motion, and we’re in for it for the long haul.

Images: Photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto is interested in creating both lightning fields inside his studio, and photographing empty screens and performance spaces.

Partly, they’re just aesthetically pleasing to me.  But I don’t take them out and look at them frequently.  Or ever.  I don’t consciously think of them as a collection.  Really, I think that they somehow represent an opportunity for me: someday, I tell myself, I will Do Something with them.  And while it’s true that I have used them on occasion (they have made great wrapping paper), the Something that I tell myself I will Do is grander than that.  Maybe I will make amazing art pieces with them someday.  But I don’t really make visual art, and I’m not much of a crafter.  Maybe I simply don’t want these lovely things to go to waste, so I hold on to them. But they're just taking up space in a cabinet, doing nothing.  Logically I should get rid or them, yet I've never been able to bring myself to do so.

I think this is a large part of Mugwumpin's fascination with our possessions: we undeniably have relationships with the inanimate objects in our life, but they are decidedly one-sided.  Anything we get back from these objects is the result of anthropomorphizing or magical thinking.  But it's still a relationship, not so very different from the relationships we have with people.  There is still a connection.  But while relationships between two people are infinitely more complex (both people, after all, are probably engaging in all sorts of magical thinking and illogic and projection), our connections with our things allow us to look at the inexplicable ways we behave in relationship with others, while isolating the source of complexity.  Our things, after all, want nothing from us. (Right?)

Naturally, I brought the maps to rehearsal to see if they would prove useful.  While they didn’t find a place in the show, this type of relationship with our stuff has fascinated us: potent, illogical, unexplainable.  And above all, personal.  Thank you to the cast, production team, and numerous friends and family members who have plunged into their mysterious relationships with their stuff to enrich this performance.