Bad at Sports Episode 972: Jeanette Andrews

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