Our July Creative Morning event in Lisbon took place at the Grow Inc. Spaces venue in Anjos. The seventh floor setting has a rooftop balcony, making it the perfect location to catch the morning sunshine over breakfast with a stunning view of the Lisbon cityscape. Attendees rubbed shoulders against the scenic backdrop, while enjoying fresh pastries and coffee before the presentation began.

Our July theme was Treasure, set by the Melbourne Creative Mornings team. We were asked to contemplate what treasure means to us: do we have creative treasure we are unaware of, waiting to be uncovered?

It was an appropriate title considering our guest speaker, Joao Blumel forged his career as an mind reader, uncovering answers through the hidden, subconscious mind. Joao has been a professional mind reader and entertainer for over fifteen years.

It all began when Joao discovered a modality called Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) as a teenager. NLP identifies unconscious maps or patterns of behaviour. By consciously using language, NLP helps to bring about changes in someone’s behaviour. While it has become more mainstream in recent years, back when Joao discovered it, it was a niche topic.

As Joao had been practicing magic since the age of 8, he decided he wanted to combine NLP with magic to see what kind of effects he could create. This was a theme of Joao’s talk: how he combines more than one idea for unexpected and entertaining effects.

His first show was at Fabrica Braco do Prata in Lisbon, which lead to eight years of performances for general audiences. During this time, Joao performed internationally and made a name for himself outside Portugal performing at the legendary Magic Castle in LA, in 2011.

Hitting a period of writers block, he had a life changing experience when he tried VR for the first time. Now, he blends the latest advances in tech into his shows for a mind-reading experience with a difference. In 2019 he created a show called “The True Influencer”, where people on stage experience 3D effects and he uses the technology to predict people’s thoughts before they have them.

Joao incorporates three forms of metaverse tech: VR (Virtual Reality), AR (Augmented Reality) and AI (Artificial Intelligence) into his shows. He explained how for Expo Dubai in 2020, his show combined tech, entertainment and items associated with Portuguese culture. Using augmented reality, people interacted with 3D depictions of pastel de nata or Ronaldo’s jersey, that then materialised in real life.

Other ways tech is used in his show is where via a downloadable app, Joao predicts the choices people will make before they make them. He also predicts what AI will predict ahead of time from a list of 100 items. The audience is involved in the process, making the events interactive and fun.

”Tech and live entertainment are always evolving, at least I think it should. I want to incorporate more and more tech,” Joao said, as he explained that he’s in the process of developing his first 100% metaverse show.

It seems Joao has just begun to scratch the surface of possibility with the combination of mentalism and technology: another frontier to be explored in a changing world where the duality between humans and machines continues to expand.