Teatro Encantado’s “Jornadas de la Cartomagia” event was conceived as a framework to offer performances, talks and conferences that would be difficult to accommodate in the usual magical congresses both because its duration and depth. Due to Gabi’s alignment with this proposal (as well as his predisposition and generosity for friendship), from the beginning a permanent space was created so that he could, annually, present a talk of the topic and duration of Gabi’s choice that he would prepare throughout the year. Generally, this talk was accompanied by some notes written, with the exception of the 2017 edition, Gabi was part of the event from its creation (2013) until his passing.
As these those lectures were given there for the first time it was common for Gabi to underestimate the duration that he would need to unfold the contents of his work. Therefore, many times the notes were the only source for the explanation of the effects since he did not have time to explain nor performer them all. In the case of his talk on “Perceptual Awareness,” the lecture had to be carried out in two editions.
The topics he presented each year were:
- Beyond the Method (2013): A conference on transcending the internal life of the routines (with examples not only of card magic: the talk began with very simple and marvelous rope routine) to focus on external life.
- The Perceptual Awareness I (2014): In recent years, Gabi’s work was very oriented to understanding brain and mental processes such as perception, attention, memory… Being a mainly theoretical work, in this first year the first two topics were discussed: “The Brain”, “The Mind”, and he presented his definition of “Mental Life”.
- Perceptual Consciousness II (2015): Second part of the previous year’s work, dedicated to the third topic: “Consciousness”.
- Encounters and Disagreements (2016): Gabi presented a conference with various card magic routines that were both practical and very easy to follow for the spectator.
- CANCELLED: On Giobbi’s Secret Agenda (2017). Gabi had compiled a series of notes and covered some routines of Roberto Giobbi’s work. Unfortunately, Gabi could not finally attend the conference that year.
- Shake it Before Using (2018): A study on the creativity and presentation of an eminently practical method, created by Gabi to encourage creative work and develop routines or complete sessions. With multiple Gabi routines and effects as an example.
- “The mystery of the impossible” (2019): A work where Gabi examines magic, and his own conception of it, from the prism of the magic act as a dramatic piece and the relationships between magic and theater.
- Presentation of the magazine Rub-A-Dub (2019): Gabi presented his project for a periodical magazine- (eventually only the first issue was released, supposedly the second issue was almost finished)
Apart from the official talks, Gabi participated in several colloquia where he offered his point of view about different aspects of magical before an audience of loyal followers (which used to be almost the same year after year) He also gave master talks in the dead times, at the dinner table or the bar. During one of them he won the affection and absolute admiration of Max Maven. Max is usually part of the committee that selects the honorary awards of the FISM. The direct consequence of that encounter that was that Gabi was nominated for the 2015 FISM theory award that took place in Rimini.
Teatro Encantado’s “Jornadas de la Cartomagia” talks, and lectures were recorded in audio format. This content will be released soon in this website.