Thomas Webb (b. 1991, Ashford, Kent) lives and works in London. He came to art through hacking rather than through art school, breaking into video games as a child and into his school's computer network at thirteen, and he still describes himself as a creative hacker. He programs artworks using game engines, custom physics applications, real time data feeds and AI, then hand builds the machines that display them, so the technology disappears and the viewer is left with the work alone. He invented the digital infinity mirror, using high power LED displays and custom hardware to give a programmed artwork infinite depth that shifts with the viewer's position. The data comes from social media, stock prices, mortality statistics and NASA feeds, and the subjects are mental health, addiction, surveillance and control, treated from the position of someone who grew up inside the internet rather than observing it.
His debut solo exhibition Strangers opened at Woodbury House in Soho in 2018. He has created installations for Valentino in Tokyo and at Art Basel, and exhibited at Ars Electronica in Linz with Mercedes-Benz EQ. He was named Ashurst Emerging Artist of the Year for New Media, and has given TEDx talks in Berlin and Bucharest on creative hacking. In 2019 he was expelled from the Magic Circle after revealing the mechanics of his own illusions in public, to make a point about how technology companies work.
In 2021 Plan X presented his solo exhibition Daddy, what was real life like? in Milan.
