Deep beneath the City of London Guildhall Art Gallery are the remains of a Roman Amphitheatre, accessible to visitors via the Art Gallery. One can walk among the ruins and by virtue of thick glass panels set in the floor, even walk over them, gazing down into the old gutters.

To give visitors a sense of what it might have been like, the gallery have constructed a façade detailing the tiered seating along with a number of bodies in motion. Against a black background, the seating and bodies are etched in a computer graphic fashion not dissimilar to what you might expect in the original Tron movie. They’re not in the style of smooth CGI common in modern films but more in the sense of mathematical frameworks.

The effect is beguiling and intriguing. Standing, looking up at the seating with a piped soundtrack of crowds cheering, you can almost imagine you’re there. Futuristic imagery seeking to complete the ancient ruins peels away the aeons. Past and future combine in the visitor’s present experience. The city is alive again in the way that it once was and it whispers to your inner self the simple truth that such a life of brutality is never really that far away.