maxpark.design
Max Park is a designer, researcher, artist and educator
whose work focuses on presenting AI and emerging technologies in forms that
invite curiosity and attention.
Through public installations, writing, film, workshops and
talks, his practice explores the environments these technologies shape and the
changes they bring about in the world, with a view to developing both the
technologies and our relationship with them beyond dominant narratives of
convergence and extraction, and towards wellbeing.
Prompting Nowhere, 2025
What might AI look like if it were “ethically compliant”
with William Morris’ ideals and values? Inspired by his novel News from
Nowhere, the installation includes an offline AI, powered by a sewing
machine treadle, which intervenes in the speed, form and content we’ve grown
accustomed to when interacting with generative AI. The installation is
accompanied by a short documentary and essay drawing on interviews with experts
both within and beyond the world of tech. Together, these explore craft theory,
autonomy and utopianism, while asking who these utopias are for.
Prompting Nowhere Hand-cranked, 2026
Journalist and author Elle Griffin lived and worked with an
updated version of the hand-cranked device originally used to guide the
interviews and provoke discussion, while writing about the project. This
offered a slower relationship with the device, perhaps much closer to its
imagined use in Nowhere than the brief encounters of an exhibition. Her article
is now published through the Mozilla Foundation and her own platform, Elysian.
The Divergence Engine, 2026
This machine makes usually hidden choices about how AI
systems select and present information physical, adjustable and open to
scrutiny. Rather than returning a definitive answer or another flood of text,
it offers breadcrumbs: sourced fragments, scattered clues and disparate ideas
that invite people to make discoveries of their own while questioning how
online knowledge is shaped.
The Divergence Engine is the first provocation in an ongoing research project.
Central to that research is inviting people to use, question, tinker with and
critique the machine. With this in mind, the code and build instructions are
open-source.
The Overview Effect, 2024
This wearable imagines a meditative space-tourism
experience, drawing on the Overview Effect, the sense of awe reported by
astronauts looking back at Earth from space. The jacket inflates and glows in
time with the breathing of a teacher on Earth, guiding the wearer’s breath. It
explores how technology might support such an encounter, whilst also
considering what changes when a moment of transcendence becomes packaged and
sold. The project culminated in an audiovisual performance at The Yard Theatre
in Hackney.
Die Gestalten, 2024
Three abstract household objects explore how AI might
expand our understanding of the world and our place within it. These
interactive artefacts are accompanied by three videos, and
hidden within a seemingly banal sequence of events are questions of trust,
privacy, autonomy, power and ambiguity in our relationship with emerging AI
technology.
Essentia, 2023
Whilst offering significant advantages, agile ways of
working can leave people with less control over their immediate workspace. This
project explores how aspects of control and personalisation might be returned
to these fluid environments, supporting the wellbeing of those who work in
them.
Brew_Lab, 2026
An interactive installation exhibited at Dropcity during
Milan Design Week 2026, exploring possible coffee futures through aromatic
profiles that shifted in real time. The project was led by Sarah Ali, with
scents developed in collaboration with Marina Barcenilla and Scentible, and
coffee supplied by Assembly Coffee in Brixton.
Pondi, 2023