b. 1991, United Kingdom
Thomas Webb was born in Ashford, Kent, in 1991 and currently lives in London, England, working from his studio in Notting Hill. He started his professional career as a technology magician and hacker, performing twice on America’s Got Talent (2017) and showcasing his mind-reading AI robots and autonomous drones on news stations and TED talks worldwide. Since his first self organized show in 2018, Webb’s work has been shown in major galleries and institutions worldwide. His artworks were part of the group show, ‘Link In Bio’ at the Museum of Fine Arts, Leipzig (December 16, 2019 – March 15, 2020). His debut solo exhibition ‘Exercise In Hopeless Nostalgia. World Wide Webb’ at KÖNIG GALERIE (August 14, 2020 – August 14, 2021) greeted over 5,000 visitors on it’s opening night into a first of its kind massively multiplayer real-time video game exhibition space. Webb later opened the virtual space, accessible through the highly shareable smartphone web browser, to other artists as part of the international group show ‘Better Off Online. World Wide Webb’ with KÖNIG GALERIE at Ars Eletronica (September 9 – November 30, 2020).
Webb is widely known for his iconic hand-built AI-powered installations coined by the artist as AI ‘Portals’. Webb was commissioned by Scope international art fair to build the atrium installation for Art Basel Miami (December 3 – 8, 2019). The 3.5-meter tall portal titled ‘I like it when I see you in person because I know you’re not lying to me like you do on the internet’ recreates facial expressions as emojis using AI vision. It is on view at the FROST Museum of Science, Miami, as part of their on-going exhibition on mental health, ‘MeLab.’
Thomas Webb has received numerous awards in recognition of his technological and artistic endeavors. Notably, Webb was awarded the Ashurst Emerging Artist of the year prize for New Media (2019). Saatchi & Saatchi named him one of their new creators for his short film about real-time data and depression, “STRANGERS.”
In 2018 Webb was commissioned by Valentino to build a series of holograms and create a site-specific video installation in Shibuya square, Tokyo, to announce the Valentino FW/19 fashion show. He later made a series of AI-vision portals that scraped information about guests attending the Valentino event at Art Basel, Switzerland (2019). Webb built an exhibition for Ars Electronica, Linz (2019), with Mercedes-Benz EQ, using depth tracking, AI, and holograms to explore the future of advertising.