About

ART, TECHNOLOGY AND THE NATURAL WORLD

Laura Dekker is a London-based artist whose research-based practice explores relationships between humans, technology and nature, questioning whether these are useful categorisations to hold on to.

Her work investigates how humans interpret and impose meaning on the world, and how nature and technologies shape the ways we experience and construct ourselves and our environments. She is interested in tiny interactions between human effects and disrupted species in urban landscapes, as well as larger questions around transformation, emergence, responsiveness and ecological connection.

Laura works across interactive installation, walks, video, audio, performance and collaborative projects. Her practice often combines physical and organic materials with real-time data scraping, computation, robotics and responsive systems, creating sensorially rich works that invite the viewer-participant into the artwork.

She has received commissions and residencies from organisations including Lumen Art Projects, Goldsmiths and V&A Digital Programmes, Eureka! The National Children’s Museum, Soho Create, Art’otel Amsterdam, Dr Martens Carnaby Street and Secret Cinema. She is currently Centenary Artist in Residence at the Ladies’ Pond, Hampstead Heath, London, from September 2025 to September 2026.

Laura holds an MA in Computational Arts with Distinction from Goldsmiths, University of London, a BA in Fine Art, First Class, from Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, and a PhD in 3D Imaging and Machine Vision from UCL, University of London.

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Selected Awards / Commissions

  • Centenary Artist in Residence, Ladies’ Pond, Hampstead Heath, London, 2025–2026
  • Watershed, collaboration with XAP, St Albans Cathedral, 2025
  • Lowes Dickinson Prize, 2024
  • As A Machine That Would Never Break, Leeds International Festival, Lumen Art Projects Commission, 2020
  • Goldsmiths and V&A Digital Programmes Computational Art Residency, 2019
  • Making Us, Contains Art and Lumen Projects Commission, Watchet, 2019
  • Earthly Delights, Eureka! The National Children’s Museum, Halifax, 2018
  • Spirit of Soho competition winner, Soho Create, 2016
  • Art’otel Amsterdam, commission for giant interactive wall, Festival of Light, 2015
  • Lumen Prize Twenty Five, 2014–2015
  • The Psychotropic House, residency at Yinka Shonibare’s Guest Projects, 2014; awarded Arts Council funding
  • Dr Martens Carnaby Street, artist in residence, 2013–2014
  • Commission for Secret Cinema’s Brazil production, 2013
  • White Lab Commission, University of the Arts London / Dr Martens, 2012

Selected Talks / Radio

  • Environment Matters, MIX92.6 FM, 2025
  • Emergence in the Expressive Machine, EVA London, 2019
  • Emergence in the Expressive Machine, Expressive 2019, Genoa
  • Panel Conversation with artist collective FLUX, Goldsmiths, 2018
  • An Architecture for an Expressive Responsive Machine, EVA London, 2018
  • Machine as Alien Ethnographer, keynote talk at Linaro Connect, Hong Kong, 2018
  • Making Conversations, with Bronaċ Ferran, Resonance FM, 2016
  • Technology is Not Neutral Symposium, panel member, Watermans London, 2016
  • Psychotropic House Symposium, London Fields, 2014

Selected Publications

  • Emergence in the Expressive Machine, Proceedings of EVA London 2019, BCS
  • Emergence in the Expressive Machine, Expressive 2019, Eurographics Association
  • An Architecture for an Expressive Responsive Machine, Proceedings of EVA London 2018, BCS
  • Technology is Not Neutral, 2016
  • Choreographies of Interaction, with Licia Calvi and Sofie Ronduite, 2015
  • To Play or Not to Play? What Makes People Interact?, with Licia Calvi and Sofie Ronduite, 2015
  • Lumen Prize, edited by Bronaċ Ferran, Computer Art Society, 2015

Affiliations

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