This year’s V&A Digital Design Weekend was an unforgettable experience, three packed days of sharing Shadowplay and building our 1,000 Titles gallery with an imaginative, curious, and wonderfully engaged audience.
Thursday
On Thursday, the day began with an arduous journey, featuring a lady sprinting down a broken tube escalator with my suitcase full of 1,000 postcards and three boxes of materials, many hours of travel, and Joe and I getting distracted by aesthetic unpacking.
Friday: Opening Night
On Friday the serious work of setting up began. Roger joined us (after catching a heroic 5:40am train!) and we spent a long day getting everything in place, doing lots of testing and fixing bugs.
So many wires
Pondering
The safety manekin
Myself, Roger and Joe tested Shadowplay: 1000 images by creating this joint artwork.
The Peach Who Saved a Raindrop
The Peach Who Saved a Raindrop
At 6pm the doors opened and we welcomed the public into our space. Straight away, visitors began bringing some of our 1,000 imaginary artworks to life, and it was incredible to watch the gallery start to take shape through their creativity. Alongside the gallery, we also ran Shadowplay Classic, our full-body interactive experience that encouraged performance, dancing, and joyful movement. The energy of the opening night set the tone for the rest of the weekend — curious, experimental, and full of unexpected surprises.
The Democratic Kettle
The Biscuit Made a Shooting Star
Synesthetic Garden of Nerve Cells
Growing Geometric Fungi
Saturday: Growing the Gallery
Day two saw fantastic attendance, with many people drawn in by the intrigue of Shadowplay. The 1,000 Titles gallery grew steadily throughout the day, each new contribution a testament to how much can be created in just a few minutes of playful prompt crafting. The collection quickly filled with strange, surreal, and beautiful works.
It’s Raining Pianos and Glass Umbrellas
Neon Penguin Crosswalk
The Shoelaces Made a Map
A River of Marbles
Exoskeleton of Neon Petals
Mirrors Designed for Ghosts
The Joy of Spling Tea in Antigravity
A Walking Umbrella
Shadowplay Classic
Sunday: Final Day and Reflections
The final day was both inspiring and bittersweet. Watching the gallery grow in real time, from surreal stories to playful creations, was one of the highlights of the weekend.
I've been involved in previous Shadowplay events. But this one felt extra special, as I had the privilege of naming the 1,000 titles that underpin the whole experience. Each title, and its prompts, was inspired by the visual language of the V&A museum. At first, I thought I could mass generate them, but in practice it became a much more analogue, time-consuming process. Even after many 2am ideation sessions, I came to love the flow and challenge of creating them. The final list feels personal, and that sense of ownership is exactly what we hoped participants would also experience.
Using AI can sometimes feel removed from the self,passive, with the output dictated entirely by the system. In 1,000 Titles, participants are co-authors. We act as mediators between human imagination and AI, ensuring the system doesn’t overwhelm the participant’s artistic voice. Their choices, ideas, and physical interactions all shape the final work. Each title is unique, printed only once, and permanently claimed by the artwork it inspires.
Behind the scenes, there was also some very clever technical work by Roger and Joe to make the whole system seamless. Each title card carried a QR code that loaded its unique prompt list into PromptTank. Once a work was generated, we captured a still image, and it is automatically uploaded it to the gallery. The postcard provided participants with a QR link to their exhibited piece. This blend of analogue prompts and digital infrastructure kept the experience fluid, immediate, and personal.
When the Moon Wore Socks
Refraction in a Crystal Forest
The Dandelion Skyscraper
UX for Penguins
The Comets Charcoal Dust Trail
The Accordion Moon Factory
Luminous Cups of Thunder
Mashed Potato Wolves
There’s Barnacles on my Llama!
The Space Station in the Earth’s Core
Closing Thoughts
By the end of Sunday, we were tired but exhilarated. The effort of transporting and setting everything up was real, but so too was the buzz of being there, working with such a brilliant audience, and watching the gallery of 1,000 Titles come alive.
A huge thank you to everyone who joined us, experimented, and brought their imagination into the process. You can still explore the evolving gallery online here.
