THOMAS WEBB
Thomas Webb is a British new media artist, creative technologist, and cultural provocateur redefining what it means to be human in a digital world. Born in Ashford, Kent in 1991 and now based in London’s Notting Hill, Webb blurs the lines between art, data, emotion, and AI. His practice is part performance, part protest, part portal, building a bridge between lived experience and the hyper-connected, hyper-surveilled landscape of now.
Webb’s career began in the most unexpected of places: as a technology magician and hacker. He made two appearances on America’s Got Talent in 2017, capturing imaginations with AI mind-reading robots and autonomous drones. But behind the theatrics was a deeper mission to challenge how we perceive technology and emotion. Webb’s work has since evolved into something far more intimate, conceptual, and critical: a lifelong interrogation of how data, identity, and machine logic shape our sense of reality.
Since his self-organised debut in 2018, Thomas Webb’s work has been shown in major galleries and institutions globally, including the Museum of Fine Arts Leipzig in the landmark group show Link in Bio (2019–2020). His first solo exhibition, Exercise In Hopeless Nostalgia. World Wide Webb with KÖNIG GALERIE (2020–2021), made history by launching a massively multiplayer real-time video game as an exhibition space ushering over 5,000 visitors on opening night into a fully immersive online world. The digital environment, accessible via smartphone, was later opened up to other artists as part of Better Off Online, exhibited at Ars Electronica.
Webb’s best-known works are his hand-built, AI-powered “Portals”, sculptural installations that convert real-time data and human interactions into emotionally charged, often unsettling visual outputs. These aren’t just machines; they are mirrors, absorbing our digital lives and reflecting them back with brutal honesty. His 3.5-metre tall AI portal I like it when I see you in person because I know you’re not lying to me like you do on the internet debuted at Art Basel Miami (2019) and is now part of the FROST Museum of Science’s mental health exhibition MeLab in Miami.
Webb has collaborated with brands pushing boundaries in both art and commerce. He was commissioned by Valentino to create holograms and a site-specific video installation in Tokyo’s Shibuya Square (2018), and later built AI-vision portals for their Art Basel event in Switzerland (2019). For Mercedes-Benz EQ, he created an interactive installation at Ars Electronica using depth-tracking, holograms, and AI to reimagine the future of advertising.
Named Ashurst Emerging Artist of the Year (2019) for New Media and highlighted by Saatchi & Saatchi as a new visionary for his short film STRANGERS, an exploration of real-time data and depression. Webb continues to be at the forefront of art’s intersection with ethics, emotion, and innovation.
Thomas Webb doesn’t just make art about technology, he makes art that is technology. A data whisperer, cultural decoder, and digital realist, Webb invites us to question everything: how we connect, how we consume, and who we are becoming.
Webb was a featured artist as part of the Creative Debuts event The Anti Art Fair in 2018
