La Maison de La Magie is in Blois which is a city & the capital of Loir-et-Cher department in central France, situated on the banks of the lower river Loire between Orléans and Tours*. I can say that, this city is medieval city which is surrounded by a river and city walls.
Chateau de Blois
According to wikipedia; Chateau de Blois** is the residence of several French kings, it is also the place where Joan of Arc went in 1429 to be blessed by the Archbishop of Reims before departing with her army to drive the English from Orléans. La Masion de la Magie is the neighbour of this castle.
La Maison de La Magie is an ancient bourgeois house from 1856, in front of the castle. This house is inaugurated as museum in 1st June, 1998. Also, this museum is the only museum where magician equipements and a live show are exhibited in Europe***
After all those informations that you can easily google; I can start to tell my experience about La Maison de La Magie. Honestly, before visiting this place, I had no idea about it. Anyway, it was easy to find it. From the highway, you can see the signs of La Maison de La Magie. It is impossible not to find it. When I see the house, I was relaxed and.... OH NO!!! WHAT ARE THOSE THINGS!
Dragons
I saw the dragons -yes, dragons- on the windows of the house. At first sight, it was scary, I should admit it. After seeing my little friends' "normal reaction", as a 26-year-old boy, I realised that was not real. Every hour, these dragons making their shows to their audience.
In front of the house, you can see a statue. Guess who? Ofcourse,it is Robert Houdin. On this statue, it writes that "On prestidigitation, there is before and after of Robert Houdin"
The Statue of Robert Houdin and a bit of my finger (at down-right corner of picture).
Firstly, Robert Houdin was just an "everything man". He was scientist first of all. He had lots of scientific works on horography and optics. His prestidigitation fame comes from on these scientific works on optics. We will talk about it later. Let's get in to "La Maison".
Me and dragons
Entrance of the house
I bought my ticket for the house. You can also buy the tickets for a light show in the castle at night, but, I didn't. Because, I couldn't find a place to sleep in Blois. Anyway, I you visit, you can buy. =)
I was there aroun 11 o'clock in the morning and I was lucky because the first live performance at th 11:15. Then I took my place in the "Grande Salle" with my friends who were from 6 to 15 years old.
Ticket and flyer
It was forbidden to take any pictures or videos, so you have to have confidence on me =) . This show's name is "Les Folies Meliès"; put on scene by François Normag and Patrice Vrain Perrault. As you know; Meliès is the one of the greatest artists in cinema and prestidigitation. He was a real illusionist at his time (1895-1938). Even if he shot over than 500 movies, we can find only around a hundred of them. And also, today's art of cinema is still using of his technics that he invented at very early ages of cinema. So, as we can understand by the show's name, it is a tribute to Meliès. There were two people on the stage, one is a man who disguised as Meliès, the other is a woman who represents today's generation.
The show was started by a classic, "Le voyage dans la lune" and then, it was a slide-show which was continued to today by mentioning all the classics like "Good, Bad and Ugly", "Disney Comics", "Star Wars" etc. Then the woman was bored because of "old fashion things" and she played a loud disco music with a stereo. It was the first "magic" when Meliès made the streo disappear. Of course, when the "magician" came up to scene, they showed us some hat tricks, such taking out sticks from hat. But it was the first "magic" which attracted us. Briefly, I should admit that, this show was a bit light for todays generation, because, they can reach everything. They have lots of illusional things on their hands. That show couldn't surprise anyone unfortunately. However, it was really good to see what Meliès do at the early-cinema-era.
After the show whose duration around 40 minutes, I've started to visit the museum from the -1th floor. At that floor, the decoration was set up to tribute Meliès.
Ghost Appearing
In this section, I also was that some make up technics in cinema.
Basically cinema is a flow of 24 frames of picture. If you can see that picture with the right rythme, you can realise the mouvements on the picture. So, of course, in this cinema section, there you can find the firs movie players.
They were real illusions for the era.The invention of first cinematographes, first movie generators and players was the "Rennaissance" of illusion. The illusion becomes more than juggling.
On the ground floor, there are lots of optic illusion tools. I will show some of them.
You can see me as a prisoner in the castle chessman. There was a little gap which was covered a little glass. When I looked into, I saw myself as a prisoner
This is really hard to explain. This little passage was covered with mirrors and you feel like on the air or on tmiddle of a cliff.
As a classic: funny mirrors
In this section, there are also some perpective tricks on pictures.
On the last three photos, you can see three different perspectives of a wall. From every perspective, you can see different picture.
On the last two pictures, you should solve mind-trick puzzles. On first pictures, there are two different animals, on the last there are two different visages.
The real museum part starts with Houdin's office and flat. In this flat you can see the tools of Houdin. Such as, magical sticks, his show hat and gloves, old tickets, notebooks etc.
For me, the most impressing thing was about this section, it was his inventions. As I pointed out earlier; Houdin was a scientist. He worked on lots of things, especially on optic and on horography. With his optical inventions, he tried to heal cataract problem.
As a magician, Houdin was also "horloger". For me, the concept of time is very special. I believe that everyone has a mainspring wounded up in themselves. Everyone lives their lives as single seconds. We can not live hours or years. We can only live in actual second. For me, the illusion is a second which is long lasting. Houdin invented some magical clocks. All the dimensions are tranparents, but, you can see the time pasts. It excites me.
Magical Clock****
In the last flat of La Maison de La Magie, there is a room which is called; Hallucinoscope. This section is invented by Gérard Majax. Basicly; you have a mirror-glass on your nose and it reflects the objects which are hanged up. So, it makes you feel that all these objects are on the floor. I was trying to make a video but it is not really clear. However, it can give you opinion.
This is the mirror glasses that you should keep on your nose. It doesn't cover your eyes.It is like blinkers. It doesn't allow you to see the floor. So, you can be "hallusinated"
Hallucinoscope*****
It was the best experience in this house for me. Even if I could understand easily how it works, I was really hallusinated. On every obscatle, I hesitated to step forward. It was really impressive.
To summarise up my visit in La Maison de La Magie, I can say that, it was a bit light. With the other words, I can say that it wasn't such impressive that I expected. However, on a poster that I saw at the end, really inspired me. There were some words of Houdin; "Then, I entered the scene. I was with spectator-friends. To extend these emotions, I close my eyes and mentally transport myself to top of my theater. But why, this fiction, I would not do a reality? I could not, every night, guided by faithful memories, continue in another form the course of my representations of the past?". These words really hit me. On the stage, we, actors, lie. And the spectators come to believe us. Same in an magician's show. Everyone knows, the magician cannot cut off a person, or he/she cannot fly. However, they really would like to believe our lies. Spectators and actors are really close friends because of this effect of illusion. They keep a common secret. Even if it is a fiction, everything on the scene is real. You feel an extended emotions from your past to your future. Whatever you see on the stage, Romeo & Julliet or a magician, they make you share same secret; the illusion of playing.
Thanks to Houdin; I will always remember the illusion of playing on the stage, as a kid does. You should know it is a show, but you have to believe its reality. Then, share with your friends, I mean, with your spectators.
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blois
**http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_de_Blois
***http://www.maisondelamagie.fr/1059-presentation.htm
****You can check more clocks on http://horlocentrale.com/?p=4660
***** To see a cleaner version on youtube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlNHFMAlxzY&noredirect=1
You can support on me http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/oytun-at-lecoq/x/6395262
