Exploring Creative Intelligence with London’s Southbank Centre

This weekend, London's Southbank Centre transforms into a hub for creative technologies as part of its inaugural Creative Intelligence weekend, organized by PACT, Planetary Art Culture Technology. The event comes at a critical juncture for the institution, which marks its 75th anniversary, as it grapples with the impact of emerging computational tools on the art world.

For a public art center that celebrates human creative agency, the shift towards technology raises important questions about collaboration with artists and innovation.

The Southbank Centre's partnership with Google Arts & Culture has been instrumental in exploring this intersection. Together, they have celebrated the Hayward Gallery's 50th anniversary, digitized Art by Post, and hosted interactive experiments in the public foyers. This weekend, those experiments will be expanded, with four interactive experiences from the Arts & Culture Lab taking center stage in the Royal Festival Hall's Clore Ballroom and Exploration Bazaar.

Visitors will have the opportunity to engage with Google Arts & Culture's AI-powered experiments, including AI Paint, which allows users to create on a squishy, fluid canvas guided by AI sea creatures, and an initiative that transforms everyday objects into instant science lessons. The weekend also features artists whose work explores the intersection of art and code, including several collaborators with Google Arts & Culture over the years.

The Creative Intelligence weekend runs from Friday, September 11 to Sunday, September 13, 2026, at the Southbank Centre. For those unable to attend in person, the experiments will also be available online through Google Arts & Culture.