The designer, poet, activist and author William Morris published News from Nowhere in 1890, imagining his romantic vision of a future Britain rooted in socialist and ecological ideals. In Nowhere there is time for everything; people approach life and work as artists and craftspeople. He argues that the world becomes not only more just, but more beautiful as a result. This vision stood in stark contrast to the Victorian London Morris was witnessing during the height of the Industrial Revolution – and to the London we see today.

Despite aspects of this future being tangibly within reach, we seem to be actively eradicating them: literally, through environmental degradation but also culturally, as we homogenise and commodify human creativity, experiences and futures through algorithmic systems. This project explores what it means to craft in the digital age, and projects how artificial intelligence (AI) might participate in a future shaped by Morris’ ideals.