ARTIFACT Futures: The London Forum @ The British Library
Official Fringe Event: London Tech Week 2026
About ARTIFACT Futures
Artifacts — the traces of human thought, craft, and expression — are how futures get made. Artifact Futures is a research-driven institute at the intersection of culture, technology, and ideas, convening scholars, technologists, artists, and practitioners around questions no single field can hold alone.
Its work takes shape through the ARTIFACT Journal, panels, symposiums, and public programs — and through the Spark Program, which supports early-stage founders, artists, and cultural practitioners building at the frontier of technology and human experience.
Learn more about ARTIFACT Futures
The London Forum
The most consequential questions of our time do not belong to a single discipline. They live at the edges—where the archive meets the digital, humanity meets the heuristic, and ancient wisdom meets emerging intelligence. No single field holds the answers; that is precisely why we are bringing them together.
The London Forum is built on the belief that when the right minds gather around the right questions, they produce something that outlasts the occasion. Set within the British Library during London Tech Week 2026, this curated assembly brings together cultural leaders, technology pioneers, and the thinkers defining contemporary discourse—voices who are not just observing the future, but actively shaping it.
Underpinning it all is the theme of our forthcoming journal: The Future is Behind Us—the idea that what we are reaching toward has, in some form, always been imagined.
Programme
The Afternoon Session | 14:00 – 17:15
The afternoon opens with an intimate gathering of practitioners, thinkers, and founders working at the intersection of culture, technology, and human experience. Through panel conversation and keynote address, the session moves between disciplines and across time - asking not only where we are headed, but what we carry with us as we go.
Throughout the afternoon and carrying into the evening, the surrounding rooms offer an open space for discovery - works, voices, and ideas from practitioners across art, technology, and culture.
The Evening Session | 17:15 – 22:00
The more powerful our technologies become, the more urgently we return to our oldest inquiries. What does it mean to create in an era of automation? What can a machine know that a body cannot - and what wisdom does the body hold that the machine never will?
The evening brings together artists, institutions, and thinkers from across the cultural and technological landscape. Moving between the ancient and the immediate, a series of panels and a closing keynote challenge the linear narrative of progress - framed by our forthcoming journal issue, The Future is Behind Us.
17:15 | Arrival & Reception
18:00 | Welcome & Introduction
18:15 | Panel conversations and keynote address
21:15 | Open Reception - further conversation & final connections
Participation & Curation
The full cohort of speakers and the detailed schedule will be released in the coming weeks. We curate our programme and our audience with equal precision; to receive the final announcement and session details, please ensure you are subscribed to our correspondence.
A Note on Attendance Please be aware that spaces are limited and registration does not guarantee a place. Attendance is by acceptance only. We compose the room carefully to ensure a truly cross-disciplinary exchange; every guest is invited because we believe their perspective is vital to the dialogue.
Confirmed guests will be notified via email.