Discipline
Brand Design
Event production
Art commission
UAL x London Tech Week
As part of overseeing the whole creative direction of London Tech Week, I was tasked to activate a new feature—Future Play.
My approach was to celebrate our "Reflecting every angle of tech" with pure creative expression. I commissioned University Arts London Creative Computing Institute to deliver a series interactive art installations.
Future Play was a space where code became art, digital interaction. Exploring the next wave of innovation through the fusion of creativity, computation, and human engagement.
From a branding perspective we wanted to create something that reflected the partnership and felt in harmony with the rest of the event—yet took on its own personality.
We evolved the palette to pick up the UAL CCI attitude with the cubes and petals creating a visual juxtaposition. The UAL CCI brand designer designed the FuturePlay lockup that symbolised the purely digital existence of the art through the pixelation of a very traditional typeface and using motion graphics to add a pixelated texture wherever the ident existed.
Working closely in partnership we curated the student work, showcasing work across art, design, fashion, photography, and media, the exhibition revealed how computational power became creative energy. Each piece invited participation, transforming viewers into co-creators.
Future Play Introduction
Where technology and creativity intersect
Technology and creativity have always been closely linked. Yet, in today’s world of constant tech innovation, creativity can go unnoticed.
This is a story of constant reinvention. We have seen it in Man Ray's groundbreaking photographic techniques, Nam June Paik's pioneering video art, and in Refik Anadol's AI-driven immersive installations. Each new generation finds new ways to adapt, reimagine and harness technology as powerful means of expression.
Today, contemporary artists and designers manipulate code, utilise algorithms, exploit artificial intelligence, and engineer interactive systems to craft and create experiences seemingly impossible just a few short years ago. These aren't passive experiences — they're living, breathing pieces that uniquely respond and evolve with each interaction: drawing audiences, as participants, into the creative process itself. Yet, despite these advanced tools, the works explore many of the same fundamental themes that have always driven creativity — personal expression, human connection and cultural and global perspectives.
This inaugural Future Play at London Tech Week epitomises these explorations through the work of the University Arts London Creative Computing Institute. Drawing from across the spectrum of art, design, fashion, photography and media students we see how computational power becomes creative energy, revealing new and expanding possibilities at the intersection of human ingenuity and technological capability. Each of the works invite engagement, create unique moments where viewers become participants; their interactions shaping and transforming the piece in real-time.
Future Play is a real-world space where code enables art, where digital is the norm, and where the next wave of innovation emerges through the combined power of creativity, computational technologies and participatory experience.
Professor Lawrence Zeegen
Director _ Creative Computing Institute
Caspian Rabone
Creative Director _ London Tech Week
