Wednesday, August 16, 2017 at 6:30 PM – 9:00 PM PDT
Fenwick & West LLP
801 California St
Mountain View, Ca 94041
Magic is typically performed as a sequence of
barely-related tricks, which focus merely on fooling people. It is typically
viewed as being a trivial and light-hearted distraction for children, rather
like a dancing dog. However, magic can be far more than just that. It can
portray deeper truths about the human mind, the human condition, and the human
predicament. I shall illustrate a number of performance pieces that draw from
cognitive science to make the magic more meaningful. Judge my magic, not merely
by how convincingly it lies, but by how compellingly it reveals he greater truth.
Dr Kim Silverman is a Principal Research Scientist at a
large Silicon Valley technology company, where he works on speech and language
technologies. He has B.Sc. degrees in Cognitive Science and in Computer
Science, his Ph.D. is from Cambridge University, where he was Research Fellow
in Speech Synthesis. and his post-doctoral research was at Bell Labs.
Kim is also a professional magician, with a reputation
for making magic meaningful. He is President Emeritus of the Silicon Valley
chapter of the Society of American Magicians, and a Magician Member of the
Academy of Magical Arts in Hollywood, better known as the world-famous Magic
Castle. His TEDx presentations on his thinking behind his magic have 107000
views so far. His Commonwealth Club presentation on "Magic, Science, and
the Human Mind" was syndicated to 160 public broadcasting stations
nationwide.
Cost: $10 - $20
