History of Suspended Animation

  

​

Suspended Animation was designed and documented in John Taylor sketchbook of illusion ideas in 1998 and the very first Suspended Animation prop was built in Brisbane Australia 2000 by Chris Murphy -Oz Illusions for my touring show in Japan. Chris and I worked in the workshop for months to bring my dream illusion to life! I'm very grateful for Chris Murphy's friendship and contributions towards the very first Suspended Animation illusion.

 

Soon after mine was built, I offered the illusion for sale to Murray Hatfield in which Chris Murphy also built the 2nd Suspended Animation illusion. It was then shortly after, released and sold to the magic community through Bill Smith - Magic Ventures and first appeared in MAGIC Magazine in April 2000 and for 15 years was built by Bill Smith and in 2013 also built by William Kennedy - WK Magic. As of April 1st, 2015 Bill Smith stopped building Suspended Animation and no longer has the rights to build the Suspended Animation illusion so I introduced a new illusion builder and the building rights were passed over to Tim Clothier - Illusion Projects so now William Kennedy and Tim Clothier are the only authorized builders of Suspended Animation in the world!

​

This spectacular illusion never seems to disappoint an audience as it’s an unexpected exchange using principles in magic that has never been seen before like John Taylor's original cloth handling technique ©, which is a very important ingredient to the illusion. This along with a combination of innovative ideas helps to contribute to the effect and thus creating the most visually exciting and practical variation of the Metamorphosis illusion ever created!

 
John's goal with Suspended Animation was to create “the ultimate illusion”. Not only a fun illusion to perform resulting in a killer reaction, but also setting new standards in illusion building construction and assembly - a prop that can be put together with ease in just a few minutes while packing small but playing big!

​

John Taylor has owned 5 x Suspended Animations and with each new model, we have changed the design and dimensions and perfected the illusion and exchange cloths to make it the very best it can be! I think you would be hard pushed finding an illusion in the market that has been as tweaked and refined as much as the new Suspended Animations that William Kennedy and Tim Clothier are now offering.