Wesley Goatley

I'm a critical artist and researcher exploring myths of technological futures and how art practice can intervene on them.

I create installations and digital artworks through interactive worldbuilding, sustainable computing, and critical & responsible AI practices.

My work is exhibited internationally, including the V&A Museum London, the Nam June Paik Art Center in Seoul, and Eyebeam in New York.

My work has been published by MIT Press and Bloomsbury, and written about by The Guardian, Fast Company, the Royal Academy Magazine, BBC Futures and more.

Selected Artworks

An image of The Hope, a gray device with a square base and a rectangular screen attached.

The Hope

Installation · 2025

One simple change transforms AI: it's no longer called 'Artificial Intelligence'.

 An image of The Horizon, a cluttered grey desk with black, hacked electronic devices surrounding a suspended Amazon Kindle.

The Horizon

Installation · 2025

A view into a 'post-abundance' near-future, and better use of the tools we have today.

 An image showing the device on a white plinth. The device resembles the Palantir logo and has a circular screen embedded in it.

The Harbinger

Installation · 2025

A warning on where AI politics in the UK (and the NHS) may lead.

 Installation view of the work, showing 6 tonnes of soil in a room, with 200 buried smartphones and smart speakers

Newly Forgotten Technologies

Installation · 2024

An installation for 200 hacked 'smart' devices and the many possible futures of our relationship to AI.

 A discarded pile of electronics beneath an open sky.

Stories From AI Free Futures

Audio Fiction / Performance · 2025

Audio fiction from futures where we abandon, ignore, forbid, or forget AI altogether.

 An image of an Amazon Echo being disassembled on a workbench.

Newly Forgotten Technologies: Five Echoes

Fiction Film / Performance · 2022

A fiction film/performance on the ecological impact of 'smart' technologies and the myths beneath them.

 Image shows the performance of Chthonia, a render of an iPhone surrounded by swirling visuals.

Chthonia

Audio-Visual Performance · 2020

An audio-visual performance between Alexa and Siri, scored by collapsing synthetic voices.

 Detail view of the Echo REIGN device, a green military smart speaker

Echo REIGN

Device / Installation · 2018

What might the hidden products of military and tech collaboration look like?

 An image of a desk, with a screen, keyboard, and office ephemera, with a smartphone and Amazon Echo on it.

Chthonic Rites

Installation · 2019

An installation for a 'smart' desk and the synthetic voices that haunt it.

 Installation view of the piece, a green painting mounted on the wall with a frame surrounding it and a computer screen on a pulley system moving across it.

Charismatic Megapigment

Installation / Video · 2019

How can machine learning give us new ways to look at art, and the world?

 Installation view of the piece, an Amazon Echo suspended in the middle of the room, surrounded by a ring of microphones.

The Dark Age of Connectionism

Sound Art Installation · 2017

A sound art installation exposing AI listening, and what voice assistants cannot answer.

 A transparent acrylic cube with electronic components inside, glowing.

The Listener

Installation · 2015

The hidden ways smartphones bleed personal data wherever we go.