Free events & performances
Installations
PoemPortraits
Es Devlin
Artist and designer Es Devlin’s PoemPortraits is a social sculpture that brings together art, design, poetry and machine learning; created in collaboration with Google Arts and Culture and Ross Goodwin.
Each visitor is invited to donate a single word to the piece. This word is instantly incorporated into a two–line poem generated by an algorithm trained on 20 million words of poetry. This poem forms the photographic flash that illuminates each unique PoemPortrait.
The work is cumulative; each poem will also include a word donated by another visitor. At the end of the exhibition, a collective PoemPortrait will be generated from everyone’s contributions: a trace of this transient social sculpture.
Barbican Sessions
Now showing on Level G: Watch intimate live performances filmed around the Barbican, from our conservatory to our highwalks and beyond.
Projections by Christie.
Totem
Chris Salter
Artist Chris Salter’s piece Totem, made in collaboration with Sofian Audry, Takashi Ikegami, Alexandre Saunier and Thomas Spier, is a large–scale, dynamic installation that uses sensing and machine learning to inform its patterns, rhythm and behaviour, giving the installation a feeling of a living, breathing entity.
Life Rewired Hub
Visit the Life Rewired Hub on Level G
Talks, performances, workshops and residencies
Inspired by and responding to our cross-arts season for 2019, the Life Rewired Hub is our new pop-up space on Level G. Hosting a programme of talks, performances, workshops, and residencies, this flexible new structure invites audiences to engage with the dizzying impact of technological and scientific change on what it means to be human today.
The Hub will be home to an exhibition which presents new writing and short films from artists and thinkers who are navigating the complex, vast, and all-too-often confusing discourse taking place around the impact of technology on our lives.
The Life Rewired Hub is being programmed in partnership with the British Council and Royal Society, and has been designed by architects Dyvik Kahlen.
Part of Life Rewired
Life Rewired Reads
What is the internet doing to our bodies?
'The rise of the web is synonymous with a new kind of body that is noticeably different to the ones which preceded it...'
Vybarr Cregan-Reid considers how the way we use tools changes the way we look, as part of our Life Rewired Reads series.
Who benefits from technological change?
'Will the robots take our jobs? Will we have more time for leisure? Who will be the winners and losers?'
Urvashi Aneja imagines four alternative futures for work in the global south, as part of our Life Rewired Reads series.
Can technology improve how our clothes are made and consumed?
'The fashion industry is heading towards an unsustainable and uncertain future'
Sarah Ditty delves into the past - and future - of fashion, as part of our Life Rewired Reads series.
Does streaming digital entertainment change your perception of time?
'There is seemingly no end to the feed; there will always be more…'
Rebecca Coleman asks what ‘now’ means in a world where media is all-pervasive and always on, as part of our Life Rewired Reads series.
What is the device in your pocket doing to your mind?
'We love and depend on our current adversary. In fact, we carry it around with us everywhere...'
Jamie Bartlett wonders if attention is becoming the most precious resource we have, as part of our Life Rewired Reads series.
What's our relationship with our planet's other alien consciousnesses?
'With AI comes the sense that we might not be the dominant actor for much longer...'
As we build rivals to human intelligence, James Bridle explores our relationship with the other alien consciousnesses, as part of our Life Rewired Reads series.
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