The journal · Published on 23 September 2026

Where Air360 comes from

A levitation never comes out of nowhere. The one we build in Lyon descends from a line of French inventors, most of whom have never had a page to their name. Here is the chain, link by link.

A French line of inventors

The modern grand illusion was born in French workshops. Robert-Houdin, a clockmaker from Blois, turned the stage into precision mechanics. Buatier de Kolta, born in Caluire at the gates of Lyon, invented the vanishing lady and the expanding cube. In 1895, again in Lyon, the Lumière brothers built the first machine for manufacturing illusions; Auguste Lumière was himself a conjuror and went on to found, with the criminologist Edmond Locard, the Amicale Robert-Houdin in Lyon, which still meets today.

Closer to us, Christian Fechner, a film producer and magician, won first prize for grand illusion and invention at FISM in 1979. He then devoted his collection and his books to Robert-Houdin, restoring him to his place in history.

Yogano, the inventor from the North

In 1982, at the Nancy convention, an inventor from northern France won the Magicus grand prize with a vertical bar stool levitation. He signed his work Yogano. For three decades, illusions came out of his workshop that magicians fought over at conventions, and he published a book presenting his grand illusions. He died in November 2021, in Wormhout.

That book is the link nobody mentions. Without it, what follows does not exist.

Spontus, the man who brought two ideas together

Olivier Guernion, a magician and inventor based in the Oise, signed his creations Spontus. Reading Yogano's book, he had a simple, new idea: combine two of those illusions. Out of that came the Spontus 360, the first levitation of a spectator taken from the audience and visible from every side. He sold it to magicians in Europe, the United States, Asia and Australia.

Yogano congratulated him for the idea, saying he would never have thought of it himself. The two men knew and respected each other: the lineage is direct, and acknowledged on both sides.

Hugo Marceau was one of the last buyers of the Spontus 360. Olivier Guernion died in September, a few weeks after one of his final orders.

What we changed

The illusion was remarkable, but it ran into the limits of a lone craftsman: some parts wore out quickly, the rise lacked smoothness, and the build could not be repeated identically. That is precisely what industrial tooling solves.

Air360 keeps the effect and rebuilds everything else. The motor has been entirely redesigned and is quieter. New timings give an organic rise, with no elevator effect. Wearing parts last far longer and are tracked one by one. The machine is driven from QLab, accepts MIDI inputs, and starts by remote control. Every unit carries an engraved serial plate and enters a register that follows its services and its successive owners.

And when Air360 improves, machines already delivered benefit too: our way of not repeating the mistake of abandoned production runs.

What we will not say

The mechanism, the drawings and the secret will never be published here. The craft demands it, and we owe it to those who will perform with it.

Thérèse, Olivier Guernion's wife, gave us her blessing to carry this work on. This article is dedicated to her, and to Yogano.

Sources

• Actu.fr, « Olivier invente des tours pour les magiciens à Cempuis », portrait d’Olivier Guernion.
• La Tribune de Lyon, « L’Amicale Robert-Houdin, le lieu secret des magiciens à Lyon ».
• Yogano Magie, entretien en ligne : grand prix Magicus 1982, lévitation verticale sur tabouret.
• Magicpedia, notice Christian Fechner : premier prix de grande illusion et d’invention, FISM 1979.