FROM the window of Alfie Dennen’s studio apartment the London 2012 Olympic Games are ever present, as tester trains trundle past on the emerging east London line and workmen holler over the din. It seems, therefore, somehow fitting that this Hackney resident and his creative partner Paula Le Dieu were named winners of a £500,000 commission for Artists Taking The Lead, one of the major projects for the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad.

Selected from the five London projects shortlisted in August from a total of 732 regional entries, Bus-Tops is a digital art project that will create LED (light emitting diode) canvases for roofs of bus shelters across the capital, allowing Londoners to create temporary art installations.

“In terms of what the project is about and what the Cultural Olympiad values are, they are really closely aligned,” the one-time amateur skateboarder says. “It’s about participation, collaboration giving people the chance to be part of the process and at the same time changing what public art means. Where is the public in public art exactly?”

The project will stretch across all 32 boroughs and utilise between 40 and 66 of the 6,000 flat-top bus shelters available in the capital. When the “techno-phobe friendly” site launches in June 2011 participants will be able to submit their designs via a virtual canvas, the entries will then be added to a users’ gallery and the public will vote for their favourites.

With such an open admission policy, the possibilities are endless, from targeting one specific individual at a specific time (cue ‘Will You Marry Me?’ messages), to optimising the whole network.

“As an artist, for example, I may want to create an exhibition where people can start on the 48 in Walthamstow, travel to London Bridge and see my pieces along the way,” Alfie says. “You can use the whole city as an exhibition space.”

The 33-year-old creative technologist has his own plans to utilise the space and is proposing a London-wide ping-pong tournament. But before the fun can start there is the serious question of work.

“Seb Coe (chairman of London 2012) put it brilliantly when we met at the commission announcement, he said, ‘Well done for winning, you do realise you now have to make it!’”

Visit www.artiststakingthelead.org.uk for more information