Event overview
26 September - 14 December 2025 Opening Event: Thurs 25 September, 6–9pm
This autumn, Goldsmiths CCA will host the largest UK institutional exhibition to date of London-based artist Lawrence Lek (b.1982, DE). Known internationally for single-project presentations combining film, installation, video games, and sound, this exhibition is the first to interweave multiple strands of Lek’s ongoing cinematic universe.
For over a decade, Lek has developed a practice he describes as ‘worldbuilding for non-humans’, centering his narrative around Sinofuturism: a speculative framework in which the problems and promises of artificial intelligence and China’s technological influence converge.
At turns dark and playful, his work is powerfully affective, featuring a recurring cast of characters who ask us what it means to exist in an age of machine consciousness and rapid social change – or what Lek calls a ‘science fiction that already exists’.
Taking its title from a monologue in NOX (2023), Life Before Automation positions the viewer in a series of parallel futures where present-day promises and anxieties around technological progress have been absorbed into the texture of everyday life. A new commission for the outdoor entrance to the CCA retraces this speculative history. Spanning three centuries of AI development, this timeline merges real and imagined events, including the rise of Farsight, the dominant tech monopoly in Lek’s world.
BIOGRAPHY
Lawrence Lek is a filmmaker, musician, and artist who unifies diverse practices—architecture, gaming, video, music and fiction—into a continuously expanding cinematic universe.
Over the last decade, Lek has incorporated vernacular media of his generation, such as video games and computer-generated animation, into site-specific installations and digital environments which he describes as ‘three-dimensional collages of found objects and situations.’
Often featuring interlocking narratives and the recurring figure of the wanderer, his work explores the myth of technological progress in an age of artificial intelligence and social change.
goldsmithscca.art/.../lawrence-lek/
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 26 Sep 2025 |
12:00pm - 6:00pm Opening Event: Thu 25 Sep 2025, 6-9pm | CCA galleries are open Wed—Sun, 12—6pm. |
|
| 27 Sep 2025 | 12:00pm - 6:00pm | |
| 28 Sep 2025 | 12:00pm - 6:00pm | |
| 1 Oct 2025 | 12:00pm - 6:00pm | |
| 2 Oct 2025 | 12:00pm - 6:00pm | |
| 3 Oct 2025 | 12:00pm - 6:00pm | |
| 4 Oct 2025 | 12:00pm - 6:00pm | |
| 5 Oct 2025 | 12:00pm - 6:00pm | |
| 8 Oct 2025 | 12:00pm - 6:00pm | |
| 9 Oct 2025 | 12:00pm - 6:00pm | |
| 10 Oct 2025 | 12:00pm - 6:00pm | |
| 11 Oct 2025 | 12:00pm - 6:00pm | |
| 12 Oct 2025 | 12:00pm - 6:00pm | |
| 15 Oct 2025 | 12:00pm - 6:00pm | |
| 16 Oct 2025 | 12:00pm - 6:00pm | |
| 17 Oct 2025 | 12:00pm - 6:00pm | |
| 18 Oct 2025 | 12:00pm - 6:00pm | |
| 19 Oct 2025 | 12:00pm - 6:00pm | |
| 22 Oct 2025 | 12:00pm - 6:00pm | |
| 23 Oct 2025 | 12:00pm - 6:00pm | |
| 24 Oct 2025 | 12:00pm - 6:00pm | |
| 25 Oct 2025 | 12:00pm - 6:00pm | |
| 26 Oct 2025 | 12:00pm - 6:00pm | |
| 29 Oct 2025 | 12:00pm - 6:00pm | |
| 30 Oct 2025 | 12:00pm - 6:00pm | |
| 31 Oct 2025 | 12:00pm - 6:00pm | |
| 1 Nov 2025 | 12:00pm - 6:00pm | |
| 2 Nov 2025 | 12:00pm - 6:00pm | |
| 5 Nov 2025 | 12:00pm - 6:00pm | |
| 6 Nov 2025 | 12:00pm - 6:00pm | |
| 7 Nov 2025 | 12:00pm - 6:00pm |
Accessibility
If you are attending an event and need the College to help with any mobility requirements you may have, please contact the event organiser in advance to ensure we can accommodate your needs.
