Maximum Magic Workshop
with Aaron Gach
This five-month (20-week) art course offers a chance to work on your own personal projects, learn from instructor Aaron Gach, and workshop with fellow art and magic enthusiasts across the globe. From smoke and mirrors to spirits and mysticism, this course will engage all kinds of magical arts in relation to diverse creative practices, historical developments, and current cultural expressions.
To provide a foundation and context for our studio-based endeavors, we will be actively experimenting with, and blurring the lines between, various interpretations of magic vis-à-vis science and sorcery, metaphysics and aesthetics, social engagement and ritual, and plenty of other enchanting topics.
Throughout the journey, artists will explore their art practice’s connection along a spectrum of magics and get feedback on their art through various exchanges including lectures, discussions, readings, exercises, projects, and other course content.
The course will include final projects, workshops, lectures, and limited readings.
Workshops offer a combined style of education that features both lectures by instructors and breakout groups facilitated by our teaching assistants. The workshops are an opportunity to not only hear and learn from stellar artists working in the field, but to also participate in intimate work groups and cohorts with fellow working artists.
Course Monthly Schedule: This course has a monthly lecture with Aaron Gach and biweekly meetings with your cohort and TA's. You have two TA sessions to choose from as participation is necessary. The lectures with Aaron are always recorded incase you need to miss it live.
Week one: Lecture by artist + Q&A (Tuesdays 8 - 9 pm EST) Always Recorded!
Week two: Discussion of lecture and reading by students facilitated by arts facilitator Daura Campos & Rachel Negrete Thorson (Mon 1 pm or Wed 8 pm EST)
Week three: Open discussion with artist to field additional questions related to assignments, projects, course content, or other relevant topics (Tuesdays 8 - 9 pm EST) Always Recorded!
Week four: Workshop/present projects and assignments facilitated by arts facilitator Daura Campos & Rachel Negrete Thorson (Mon 1 pm or Wed 8 pm EST)
Course can be paid on a monthly subscription or a one-time payment. TAAS Members get reduced pricing on all courses.
LIMITED TIME: Buy this workshop in full & get Membership for FREE
October 22nd, 2024 - April 8th, 2025
Lectures: Tues
8 pm - 9 pm ET (Biweekly)
TA Sessions: Mon 1 pm
or Wed 8 pm EST (Biweekly)
$149.99/month or $750 one-time fee
USD
Aaron Gach is a California-based artist and professor. Inspired by studies with a private investigator, a magician, and a ninja, Aaron Gach co-founded the Center for Tactical Magic in 2000—an organization dedicated to the coalescence of art, activism, magic, and positive social change. His commitment to exploring disparate arts (martial arts, magical arts, and contemporary art) has led to the creation of numerous projects that consistently address public space, social politics, and community issues.
Aaron Gach has taught courses in Public Art, Street Media, Art & Magic, and 4D Art at UC Santa Cruz, Stanford University, the San Francisco Art Institute, and currently at California College of the Arts. His work has been presented by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, Hayward Gallery – London, Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Vigo, Spain, Deutsches Theater – Berlin, and a major public commission for the City of Toronto.
Witches’ Cradles (Swingset & Gallows) - Devised initially for interrogation and torture of accused witches, the witches’ cradle was eventually reclaimed by its potential victims to induce altered states, prophetic visions, and inward journeys. Drawing from these historical notes, as well as from New Age sensory deprivation tanks, and Houdini’s famed Metamorphosis illusion, symbols of state power, and Foucaultian notions of discipline, punishment, authority, spectacle, domesticity, and subversion, the Center for Tactical Magic’s re-envisioning of the witches’ cradle suggests a present-day desire to conjure alternative states. To date, more than 2500 people have attempted to achieve an “altered state” during their 20-minute experiences within the cradles.
Magic(k) Wands – Magic(k) Wands is a display of the most encompassing symbol of magic: the wand. Like so many useful technologies over the last few thousand years, wands have gone through changes, becoming more and more differentiated, designed, and specialized. Today, UV sanitizers, security wands, cosmetics, remote controls, "personal massagers" barcode scanners, “magic markers” join the traditional tools of ritual and entertainment to conjure the magic of our daily lives.
Universal Keys - Nearly five thousand “universal” handcuff keys hang on a wall in a formation that creates an optical illusion of two interlocking links. Visitors are invited to take a key for personal use thereby deconstructing the links over the course of the exhibition. Does possession of a universal key truly enable the beholder? Or, does it simply make visible the material strengths and weaknesses of state power? In what context might such a key open up new possibilities for understanding power relations? Ultimately, these are questions to be answered by those who hold the keys.
Linking & Unlinking - Linking & Unlinking is a single-channel video initially designed for a 30ft video billboard in New York City. The video combines 3 different source materials: found footage demonstrating how to pick a pair of handcuffs; found footage of professional and amateur magicians performing the classic magic trick, "the linking rings" (a.k.a. "ninja rings"); and, a rolling text of "Know Your Rights" information from legal advocacy groups.
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