The Choreography of Attention

Apollo Robbins

Two videos of talks by Apollo Robbins

11 a.m., April 16, 2023

Join the Humanist Forum, in person OR on Zoom.

Today we will watch two short videos of Apollo Robbins, a pickpocket and entertainer. In the first video, he will demonstrate his amazing talent. In the second, he will show and explain how he accomplishes his feats.

Apollo Robbins is a peculiar variety-arts hybrid, known in the trade as a theatrical pickpocket. Among his peers, he is widely considered the best in the world at what he does, which is taking things from people’s jackets, pants, purses, wrists, fingers, and necks, then returning them in amusing and mind-boggling ways. Robbins works smoothly and invisibly, with a charm that belies his talent for larceny. One senses that he would prosper on either side of the law.

“My goal isn’t to hurt them or to bewilder them with a puzzle,” he says “but to challenge their maps of reality.”

Recently, psychiatrists, neuroscientists, and the military have studied his methods for what they reveal about the nature of human attention.
You can watch these videos at
www.ted.com/talks/apollo_robbins_the_art_of_misdirection
and
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoUSO_Mj1TQ.

If you attend in person, COVID protocols will be followed. Vaccinations and masks will be required. If you have symptoms that may be COVID, kindly attend on Zoom (see below).

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