LAWRENCE LEK

In 2024, Lek received the Frieze Artist Award, underscoring his position as a leading figure in contemporary art. In addition to numerous institutional shows, Lek has been profiled in international art and culture publications, with critics emphasising how his work uses speculative fiction and digital tools to rethink creativity in an age of intelligent machines. He has also been named among Time’s ‘100 most influential people in AI’, highlighting the cross-disciplinary impact of his practice beyond the contemporary art world.

Early life and background

Lawrence Lek was born in Frankfurt am Main to Malaysian Chinese parents and spent his childhood between Europe and Asia, including time in Osaka, before settling in the United Kingdom. He attended Westminster School in London and went on to study architecture at Trinity College, University of Cambridge, the Architectural Association in London, and The Cooper Union in New York, where an MA with Lebbeus Woods shaped his interest in speculative urban worlds.

Lawrence Lek now lives and works in London, where his background in architecture underpins a practice that maps real cities—such as London, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Beijing—into game-like simulations and cinematic essays. His work evolves across films, playable environments, soundtracks, sculpture, and performance, forming what he often describes as a continuously expanding cinematic universe.

Lawrence Lek artworks

Lawrence Lek’s artworks explore how technology reshapes identity, labour, and belief, often through fictional corporations and AI entities that mirror real-world power structures. Working largely with 3D computer graphics, game engines, and electronic music, he creates immersive installations and simulations that blur distinctions between film, video game, and architectural model while remaining firmly rooted in contemporary art.

A core strand of his practice is the long-running series ‘Bonus Levels’ (2013–ongoing), a virtual novel of interconnected urban landscapes in which players wander through speculative versions of cultural institutions and infrastructures. Within this series, the interactive installation Sky Line (2014) reimagines London Underground’s Circle Line as a rail link connecting twenty independent art spaces, using real-time simulation and game controllers to critique the precarious infrastructure of London’s art scene.

Another signature work is the video essay Sinofuturism (1839–2046 AD) (2016), which combines essay film, CG animation, and found footage to propose ‘Sinofuturism’ as an unofficial, science-fictional movement structured around seven stereotypes associated with Chinese labour and technology. The work juxtaposes external portrayals of China as exotic or cheap with domestic narratives of heroism and unity, using the figure of artificial intelligence to think through historical trauma, surveillance, and accelerated development.

Lawrence Lek has expanded this cosmology through films and simulations including Unreal Estate (The Royal Academy is Yours), Europa, Mon Amour (2016 Brexit Edition), Geomancer, AIDOL, Nøtel, 2065, and the AI-centred project NOX. These works often share recurring characters—such as wandering AIs, automated hotels, and sentient infrastructures—and recur in different formats, from feature-length films and games to installations and live audiovisual performances.

Key exhibitions

Lawrence Lek has developed large-scale installations and exhibitions with institutions worldwide, often tailoring each project to the architecture and politics of its host site. His projects have been commissioned by contemporary art museums, biennales, and foundations engaged with digital culture and AI.

Select solo exhibitions

• Lawrence Lek: NOX Pavilion, The Bass, Miami Beach (19 November 2025–26 April 2026). This exhibition extended the NOX universe into an architectural pavilion that treats intelligent machines as emotional protagonists.
• Life Before Automation, Goldsmiths CCA, London (25 September–14 December 2025). Major institutional survey of Lawrence Lek’s cinematic universe, focusing on automation, AI, and labour in relation to digital image-making.
• Lawrence Lek: NOX High-Rise, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, 28 June – 16 November 2025. In this presentation Lek’s immersive installation centred on NOX (2023), combining time-based media and scenography to stage a high-rise world governed by AI care systems.
• NOX, LAS Art Foundation, Berlin, 2023 – Solo exhibition presenting the origin of the NOX project, exploring night-time urban landscapes, AI-driven logistics, and automated infrastructures through film and installation.
• Black Cloud Highway, Sadie Coles HQ, London, 2023 – Gallery exhibition following a sentient self-driving truck along a speculative logistics route, examining automation, logistics, and spiritual crisis in a networked world.
• 2065, K11 Chi Art Space, K11 Art Mall, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong, 2018 – Gaming parlour-style installation featuring playable simulations and CGI videos imagining Singapore in the centenary year of its independence, governed by the corporate AI FarSight.

Select group exhibitions and biennales

• Biennale of Sydney (participant), 2026 edition (announced 2025) – Presentation of Nepenthe (Summer Palace Ruins Edition), a digital recreation of the Yuanmingyuan ruins that addresses looting, imperialism, and virtual restitution.
• HyperPavilion, 57th Venice Biennale, Venice, 2017 – Large-scale exhibition examining the impact of virtual technologies on art, featuring Lawrence Lek’s simulation-based work within an industrial pavilion.
• The New Normal, UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, 2017 – Group exhibition including Sinofuturism (1839–2046 AD) among works by 23 artists exploring China’s shifting national condition and globalisation.
• SeMA Biennale Mediacity Seoul, Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, 2016 – Presentation of video and simulation works within a biennial dedicated to media, urbanity, and networked life.
• Glasgow International, Tramway, Glasgow, 2016 – Inclusion in the festival programme with work exploring speculative architectures and digital urban landscapes.

Lawrence Lek FAQs

Ocula | 2025