At SPRING/BREAK Art Show 2025 in New York City, Emerson Dorsch presented Parlor Tricks for Summoning the Devil, an immersive installation reimagining the 18th-century parlor as a theatrical site of mischief, conjuring, and coded critique.

A place for leisure, performance, and the occasional transgressions. Guests were invited to engage, not just to observe. Through analog and digital diversions, the artists blur the boundaries between viewer and participant, host and guest, the sacred and the profane.

In a pointed departure from the aloofness of many contemporary installations, Parlor Tricks for Summoning the Devil invites intimacy and interaction. Visitors are encouraged to sit, speak, and play, confronting the theatricality of power, ritual, and spectacle through a series of collaborative works. Humorous and arcane, the installation unfolds across media: traditional painting, CNC-fabricated furniture, animated gifs, live game design, open-source software, ceramic figurines and carved wooden mantle ornaments built a conglomerate narrative where summoning the spirits was fun…until it wasn’t.