London-based designer Paul Cocksedge took over iconic London landmark Trafalgar Square during London Design Festival 2025, with a sculpture featuring intersecting tubes that served as telescopic viewing portals, lifting your gaze 50 meters high to see London from Nelson's vantage point. Inside each portal, you saw Nelson’s present view of London, and then viewers were taken on a journey through time, brought to life with Google’s AI filmmaking tool Flow, powered by Veo.

Cocksedge worked closely with Google Arts & Culture Lab to create moving vignettes that capture the essence of London's relentless transformation. Viewers rewinded time to see the city as it was a century ago (when Nelson came to be in the square)—with horse-drawn carriages and gas lamps—and then they were able to fast-forward into potential futures, such as a city with more local food production and streets adapted for a hotter climate, informed through conversations with Ricky Burdett, Director of the Cities Unit at LSE.

The creation process was collaborative and iterative. Flow enabled Cocksedge to realise a layer to this design, otherwise impossible, inviting the public to reflect on London’s past and visualise its possible futures.

"This piece combines one of the city’s best-known landmarks with artificial intelligence, merging timelines and bringing history into conversation with contemporary technology. It invites the public to reflect on this significant moment, the point where artificial intelligence and human experience are beginning to converge. To open this conversation within the setting of one of London’s most historic landmarks feels incredibly timely."
Paul Cocksedge

Find out more about this collaboration on our Google Arts & Culture Story.