I'm currently developing a touring theatre show that would fuse theatrical magic, physical theatre, shadow puppetry, and narrative.
A major sequence I'm dreaming of involves a piece of chalk floating up and writing, visibly, on a chalkboard/blackboard.
Wondering if such a thing exists in the literature? I like the challenge of solving this and engineering something, but don't want to reinvent the wheel.
Any help hugely appreciated!
Best,
Darcy
Melbourne, Australia

Happens every night in the Broadway musical "Matilda."

Perhaps a black art set up, if you have an assistant. That way, they could write anything you wanted to write at any time. From what you describe you are doing I would think it very doable. You could dim the lights for the spooky part of the show.

Theter's a sequence like this in the movie Fairy tales, and Paul Daniels did the effect in his first (or second) Halloween special).

For me, nothing is more magical than the imagination. It's often why a film can't hold a candle to its literary origin. Nothing can compare to what we see and imagine in our minds.

As far as I would go with spirit writing is something like Lebanon Circle's talking slates. You see nothing, but you hear the chalk grinding against the slates. That is engaging a sense, but a sense that can still allow us to conjure imagined images. I think seeing the chalk move immediately invites the notion of some kind of mechanism being involved, and the mystery becomes a puzzle. Another analogy is the Zombie verses the Floating Ball. One invites imagination, the other discounts it. Same with any IT work. Sure, done well, it's amusing to watch. But everyone knows how it works. I'd much rather watch Losander gracefully levitate an apparently heavy table using some kind of cover, where the mystery is still a mystery... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNhdZ_zHbAg

Lynx Blackboard is expensive but you can make your own.