Stuart was thrown out of school for reading too much and spent his youth involved in a range of nefarious activities including time as a pitchman, a fake psychic, a 3-card monte thrower, and a stand-up poet. When he grew up he spent 17 years developing for Interactive TV, Web, mobile devices, games platforms, and museum displays.

In 2002, a NESTA Fellowship gave him the opportunity to travel the world studying with experts in traditional techniques of deception and attention control. Refining these techniques using current research in psychology and neuroscience he developed his expertise in sleight-of hand, hypnosis, cold reading, psychological illusion, memory skills, and street performance. He explored the deeper meanings of deception with the Las Vegas Mystery School and even studied marketing and promotion with Paul Daniels.

As Hex Induction, Stuart has applied these techniques to new areas, researching how teenagers respond to the mysterious in new technologies, how organisations are regularly deceived by the language of strategy documents, and how the art of attention control can be used in installation art, visual design, media production and sport coaching.

He has given his unique talks and seminars to architects in Manchester, technologists in Lima, film editors in Paris, journalists in Sofia, museum directors in Norwich, artists in Madrid, Internet entrepreneurs in Kuala Lumpur, TV executives in Helsinki, game designers in Alicante, scriptwriters in Amsterdam, futurologists in Brussels, Rugby players in Yorkshire, and teenage inventors at the BBC.

 

This Lunchtime Talk is part of Open Studio Friday, which takes place at the Studio every week.

Do you want to find out what is going on at the Pervasive Media Studio? Are you interested in meeting our residents, talking about a specific project or curious about pervasive media? Why not pack a sandwich and join us for one of our Lunchtime Talks and Open Studio Friday.

Lunchtime Talks are informal presentations by Studio residents and associates. They normally take place at 1pm on Friday, are free and open to everybody who’s interested in what we do.

After the Talk, we also invite you to stay with us for the afternoon to continue the conversation or work on your own projects. We provide chairs, tables, wireless and a great space. You bring what you need to work with (laptop/mobile). Our open afternoons close at 5pm.

Let us know if you’d like a tour of the new space and we'll be happy to show you around! Send an email to Jason@pmstudio.co.uk

On Friday 23 Dec and Friday 30 Dec we will not be holding lunchtime talks due to the festive period. Talks will resume on Friday 6 Jan 2012.