# Tea Uglow

> Tea Uglow helps companies and start-ups explain themselves: to their teams, to their customers, and now and then to themselves. A Peabody-winning creative director, she spent 17 years at Google, where she built and led creative teams in London and Sydney, and has worked with AI since 2016.

Tea Uglow is a narrative consultant and business storyteller. She works with companies and start-ups on the knots that don't yet have the language to unpick them: internal communications, changing processes, workflow and knowledge management, marketing, brand and values.

Her consultancy is called xd137 (https://xd137.com/present).

Contact: tea@coffee.fish. Based in Australia, working worldwide.

## Pages

- [Tea](https://xd137.com/): Tea Uglow helps companies and start-ups explain themselves. Peabody-winning creative director, 17 years at Google, working with AI since 2016.
- [Talks](https://xd137.com/talks): Public talks by Tea Uglow on technology, culture, creativity and diversity, from Berlin in 2012 to now.
- [Words](https://xd137.com/words): Infinitely Limited: essays by Tea Uglow on creative society and post-AI thinking. Work, power, data, truth, and being a human animal while the machines learn to talk.
- [Library](https://xd137.com/library): Tea Uglow's library: the books, the lines worth keeping, and the shelves they came from.
- [Past](https://xd137.com/past): Seventeen years of making things, 2007 to 2024: films, books, operas, apps, installations, a play inside a kitchen and a LEGO set the size of a planet.
- [Present](https://xd137.com/present): xd137 is Tea Uglow's narrative consultancy for companies and start-ups: internal communications, changing processes, knowledge management, brand and values. Decades of creative thinking, pointed at your problem.
- [More about Tea](https://xd137.com/more): The longer story: Tea Uglow at Google Creative Lab from 2007 to 2023, with awards, interviews, profiles and podcasts.

## Past projects (2007 to 2024)

- [Other projects](https://xd137.com/past/other-projects) (2007–2012): 
- [The Art Project](https://xd137.com/past/art-project) (2008–2012): A Google Earth layer of the Prado that grew, gallery by gallery, into Google Arts & Culture.
- [Noi L'Aquila](https://xd137.com/past/noi-laquila) (2009–2011): A community site for the L'Aquila earthquake that fed into Google's crisis response work.
- [YouTube Symphony Orchestra](https://xd137.com/past/ytso) (2009 & 2011): An orchestra auditioned on YouTube, played Carnegie Hall in 2009 and the Sydney Opera House in 2011.
- [Chrome Features](https://xd137.com/past/chrome-features) (2009): Annotated YouTube films asking what an ad would look like if Google made it.
- [Get Your Business Online](https://xd137.com/past/get-your-business-online) (2009–2013): The engine and campaign that helped more than 200,000 small businesses build their first website.
- [Life in a Day](https://xd137.com/past/life-in-a-day) (2010–2011): A feature film made from one day of the world, 24 July 2010, shot by strangers.
- [Translate for Animals](https://xd137.com/past/translate-for-animals) (2010): Google's April Fool's app that translated your pets. The Lab's first.
- [YouTube Play at the Guggenheim](https://xd137.com/past/ytplay) (2010): A one-off 'biennial' of online video, judged by a museum that had to decide what a YouTube clip was worth.
- [Web Lab](https://xd137.com/past/weblab) (2010–2013): Five Chrome Experiments that made the internet physical, installed at London's Science Museum.
- [Android in Spaaaaaace](https://xd137.com/past/android-in-space) (2010): "Stupidest idea ever. Also one of my favourites."
- [YouTube Space Lab](https://xd137.com/past/space-lab) (2011–2012): Teenagers designed science experiments, and astronauts ran the winners on the International Space Station.
- [AD-FREE GOOGLE](https://xd137.com/past/ad-free-google) (2011): A mock-up ad asking: would you pay Google 5¢ a day to turn the ads off?
- [Think Quarterly](https://xd137.com/past/think-quarterly) (2011): Google's hardback magazine for 1,500 partners, which a million people read online.
- [Future of the Book at TED](https://xd137.com/past/future-of-the-book) (2011): A talk about "bookness": why a book is an experience before it is an object.
- [Google Voice Search](https://xd137.com/past/voice-search) (2011): Billboards spelled the way London talks, to sell talking to your phone. Cannes Gold, 2011.
- [Lamps](https://xd137.com/past/lamps) (2011): A big design research project with BERG that found beauty and never left the Lab.
- [Online Checkout](https://xd137.com/past/online-checkout) (2011): An ad for online checkout that Tea assumed could never be classy, and was.
- [Good to Know](https://xd137.com/past/good-to-know) (2011): Google's plain-English campaign on privacy and online safety.
- [Google Beach at Cannes](https://xd137.com/past/cannes-beach) (2011): The first free beach at Cannes Lions, open to everyone, like Google.
- [FrontRow](https://xd137.com/past/frontrow) (2012): Live concerts from the Sydney Opera House that you could direct from inside a banner ad.
- [Chrome: New Dad](https://xd137.com/past/new-dad) (2012): The Chrome ad about a dad who loses his phone, built from Tea's own baby photos.
- [Build with Chrome](https://xd137.com/past/build) (2012): The largest LEGO set ever made, built in the browser by anyone who wanted a brick.
- [Speakeasy](https://xd137.com/past/speakeasy) (2013): An experiment with Google's voice tools that made its bugs the subject.
- [Bar.Foo](https://xd137.com/past/barfoo) (2013–2015): A secret job interview that appeared only to people searching for the right programming terms.
- [Midsummer Night's Dreaming](https://xd137.com/past/dream40) (2013): A Midsummer Night's Dream played live over three days, while 30 new characters lived the weekend out online.
- [The Binoculars](https://xd137.com/past/binoculars) (2013): Coin-operated binoculars on the Opera House steps that looked out on 40 other World Heritage sites.
- [Moodstone](https://xd137.com/past/moodstone) (2013–2014): A pocket stone for recording how you feel, made for stress research and carved from cherry wood.
- [Hangouts in History](https://xd137.com/past/hangouts-in-history) (2013–2016): A Year 8 class video-called the year 1348, and actors answered.
- [Shakespeare's 450th](https://xd137.com/past/shakespeare-450) (2014): Six live, interactive events with Bell Shakespeare for the playwright's 450th birthday.
- [The Cube](https://xd137.com/past/cube) (2014–2016): A music video with six sides, one for each part of the song, that you turn with your hand.
- [Collector Cards](https://xd137.com/past/collector-cards) (2014): Swappable digital tokens of value, years before NFTs, built on technology Google bought and then buried.
- [StorySpheres](https://xd137.com/past/storyspheres) (2014–2017): A tool for hanging stories and sound on 360° photos, used to carry Anangu voices into Street View at Ulṟu.
- [The Next Stage](https://xd137.com/past/next-stage) (2014): An experiment with Griffin Theatre that ended in a play the audience took over.
- [BITESIZE](https://xd137.com/past/bitesize) (2015): A tool built on Google Sheets to replace Google Sites, which both teams treated as a bug.
- [TEDdyX](https://xd137.com/past/teddyx) (2015): Forty talking teddy bears that had lost their owners somewhere in the Sydney Opera House.
- [Editions at Play](https://xd137.com/past/editions-at-play) (2015–2018): Books that cannot be printed, made with Visual Editions. Peabody Award, 2018.
- [Sounds in Space](https://xd137.com/past/sounds-in-space) (2015–2019): Audio you can walk through: an open-source kit for placing sound in physical space.
- [Wormholes](https://xd137.com/past/wormholes) (2016): A design collaboration for the 20th Biennale of Sydney.
- [Treehugger / Swirl](https://xd137.com/past/treehugger) (2016): A magic wand that led children through a park to free trapped fairies.
- [Ghosts, Toast and the Things Unsaid](https://xd137.com/past/ghosts-toast) (2016): Two audience members haunt the kitchens of a 50-year marriage and overhear what was never said.
- [A Universe Explodes](https://xd137.com/past/a-universe-explodes) (2017): A blockchain book you can only own by giving it away, losing words each time.
- [Project Respect](https://xd137.com/past/project-respect) (2017–2019): An early push to fix the bias in generative AI's training data, before anyone called it generative AI.
- [Love at Fifth Site](https://xd137.com/past/love-at-fifth-site) (2017): Short films where your phone is a torch that reveals what the characters are really thinking.
- [The Oracles](https://xd137.com/past/the-oracles) (2017): Enchanted objects that answered Haringey schoolchildren as they moved through Punchdrunk's Fallow Cross.
- [Amaravati at the British Museum](https://xd137.com/past/amaravati) (2017): Point your phone at a 2,000-year-old Buddhist relief and its donors step out to meet you.
- [Semi-Conductor](https://xd137.com/past/semi-conductor) (2018): Conduct an orchestra in your browser by waving your arms at a webcam.
- [Belongings](https://xd137.com/past/belongings) (2018): If you had to leave home forever, what one thing would you take? An installation of migrants' answers.
- [Displayed](https://xd137.com/past/displayed) (2018): Heidi Latsky's living gallery of dancers, given a layer of sound that moves with you.
- [Project AR-ia](https://xd137.com/past/aria) (2018–2019): Mozart's Magic Flute, performed on your coffee table in augmented reality.
- [TUTU](https://xd137.com/past/tutu) (2019): An augmented reality ballet, made with the Royal Ballet for a newly commissioned score.
- [Precursors to a Digital Muse](https://xd137.com/past/digital-muse) (2019): Five GPT-2 writing tools built with writers in 2019, then deliberately left on the shelf.
- [Photo Book](https://xd137.com/past/photo-book) (2020): A photo book, shot through a fisheye lens.
- [Wet Matter](https://xd137.com/past/wet-matter) (2020): An artwork of about 140 sounds you wear, made with Agatha Gothe-Snape for her survey at MUMA.
- [Simpl.tools](https://xd137.com/past/simpl-tools) (2022): A bid to use the Matter smart-home standard to make technology less screen-shaped.
- [MMK](https://xd137.com/past/mmk): 
- [Pianola](https://xd137.com/past/pianola): 

## Elsewhere

- https://teauglow.com
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/teaelleu
- https://www.instagram.com/teaelleu
- https://infinitelylimited.substack.com
- https://coffeedotfish.medium.com