Artist and magician Jeanette Andrews joins Duncan and Jesse at the Elmhurst Art Museum, the very place where, as a teenager, she began imagining how magic could become contemporary art. Nearly twenty years later, that ambition has become an exhibition.
The conversation travels from Victorian parlor magic and vaudeville to the psychology of surprise, Alan Turing, and Andrews's Taken by Artificial Surprise, which asks audiences to distinguish between human-created magic and illusions developed with machine learning. Along the way: why knowing how a trick works can ruin the experience, whether magic is really for adults, and a research process involving enough handwritten notes to make an apartment resemble a conspiracy theorist's headquarters.
****Update: The HCL Benefit is November 10th, 2026
Photo: Michael George
Name Drop List:
Duncan MacKenzie - kurasmackenzie.com
Jesse Malmed - uwm.edu/arts/directory/malmed-jesse/
Jeanette Andrews - jeanetteandrewsstudio.com
Bad at Sports - badatsports.com
Lumpen Radio - lumpenradio.com
Elmhurst Art Museum - elmhurstartmuseum.org
McCormick House - elmhurstartmuseum.org/architecture
Criss Angel - crissangel.com
John Cottingham - johncottingham.co.uk
Western Philosophy: An Anthology - johncottingham.co.uk/Western-Philosophy/
Max Maven - maxmaven.com
The Office - peacocktv.com/stream-tv/the-office
Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin - encyclopedia.com/people/literature-and-arts/theater-biographies/jean-eugene-robert-houdin
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago - mcachicago.org
Invisible Roses - mcachicago.org/stories/editorial/invisible-roses/
Anton Chekhov - britannica.com/biography/Anton-Chekhov
Tom Griffiths - psych.princeton.edu/people/tom-griffiths
Revealing ontological commitments by magic - pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25490128/
High Concept Labs - highconceptlabs.org
Harvard metaLAB - metalab.harvard.edu
Alan Turing - britannica.com/biography/Alan-Turing
Computing Machinery and Intelligence - academic.oup.com/mind/article/LIX/236/433/986238
Taken by Artificial Surprise - jeanetteandrewsstudio.com/taken-by-artificial-surprise
Chicago Symphony Orchestra - cso.org
In Plain Listen - jeanetteandrewsstudio.com/in-plain-listen-nac
University of Houston - uh.edu
MIT — Jeanette Andrews visiting-artist profile - arts.mit.edu/people/jeanette-andrews/
On Wonder, Mind, & Magic: Jeanette Andrews - elmhurstartmuseum.org/exhibitions/on%20wonder%20mind%20and%20magic
High Concept Labs 2026 Benefit - highconceptlabs.org/events/2026-benefit
