With Stephen Mottram’s Animata (www.stephenmottram.com/home.html)

The symposium will explore how our brain creates perception of the world around us, and how this understanding can be exploited to create art, theatre and even magic. The afternoon will close with a performance by Stephen Mottram of his Animata show, which uses only white tipped wands to create a funny, mesmerising story about youth and old age.

Featuring talks from Matthew Tompkins, a psychologist and magician investigating how sleight of hand experiments can teach us about perception; Dr Anthony Atkinson a psychologist studying how emotions can be inferred from limited visual information; Dr Betina Ip, a vision neuroscientist with a background in fine art; and from Stephen Mottram himself.

Tea and coffee will be provided throughout the afternoon, and a drinks reception will be held at the end of the symposium.
The symposium is free and open to all. We welcome undergraduates, post-graduates, parents, academics, scientist, artists and anyone with an interest in perception.