Award 34: Assembly

Assembly is a new project from Olawale (Ola) Okunrinboye, a London-based creative technologist whose practice spans data visualisation, immersive technology and creative computing. He works at the meeting point of art, culture and emerging technology — building interactive installations, digital storytelling projects and community-facing programmes that use technology as a tool to keep culture alive, visible and accessible.

A giant monster is projected onto a wall in Poplar, near one of Europe's biggest data centre sites. It drinks water. The more people gather in front of it, the more it drinks — until the law shrinks the space they're allowed to stand in.

Ola says "While the right to gather has been getting smaller, so has the right to object to what gets built near you. Data centres were made critical national infrastructure in 2024. Councils now have to take their need into account when deciding planning applications. Government is looking at taking some of those decisions off local councils entirely. At the same time, 84% of the data centres being proposed in the UK are going into areas already short of water. One big site can drink billions of litres a year. The machine gets a fast lane. The people whose water it takes get a slow one. That's what this is about." 

This project will be on for two night at the end of October 2026. Check out the amazing website Ola is creating for the project here and follow him on insta @olathemagnificent