I am awaiting the announcement of the long list on July 12th. This year there were 800 entries and mine included early documentation of my MA Show exhibit. So perhaps a long chance for me once again (having also entered my MA Display exhibit at the same stage of documentation last year with no success).

I cannot show the entry as published on the Lumen Prize website as they will not be shown there until after the long list is published, so here are a few pics and the word file I used to prepare my entries to three categories: VR/AR Award, 3D/Sculpture Award, and Moving Image Award. I was not allowed to enter the Student Award as it is for moving image only and my exhibit contained other elements as well as moving image. Not fair, I think.

Lumen Prize Entry 2017

This art installation is based on a true story, first told in a BBC radio programme in 2015 by Emma-Jane Kirby, and made into her book titled ‘The Optician of Lampedusa’. The book was nominated for Waterstone’s book of the year 2016. Emma-Jane Kirby gave me permission to make this work as an educational project for my final MA Show at UAL (University of the Arts) Camberwell which will be exhibited there July 13 – 21 2017. It is a story about the refugee crisis, from the point of view of the refugees making the perilous journey by boat from Africa to Europe, and not as we usually see it from our perspective of Europe’s self-interest. Here the refugees’ journey is via Tunisia to Lampedusa, an Italian island closer to Tunisia than the Italian mainland. This artwork narrates the story of the opticians’ wife who helped rescue forty souls from the sea, but had to leave four hundred more behind to drown. Their boat was built for ten people.

The art installation consists of two life-size 3D scanned and 3D printed busts, one of the rescuer and another of the refugee. The actors narrate their story in a heart-rendering way using binaural recording and green screen video where the substituted background is the sea with the sound of seagulls. 3D Holograms of the refugees can be seen throughout the exhibition space through the Microsoft Hololens.

3D scans of the actors using Factum Foundation’s Veronica Scanner (exhibited at the Royal Academy of Art) and an Occipital Structure Sensor attached to a mini iPad. The first was processed by Factum Arte, and the second in a cloud app ItSeez3D. The 3D prints were made from the scans in several parts using the Selective Laser 3D Printer at UAL Central Saint Martins, and assembled by me at home. The binaural sound recording and video was made at Camberwell Studios using a Canon 80D digital camera, a ZoomH1 digital recorder, and a binaural head. The 3D scans were converted and input to the HoloLens via OneDrive using Microsoft software.

Here is a list of the pictures I sent:

Holograms of the 3D sculpture of the refugee, as shown in my studio, but will be similarly projected into all Lumen exhibition spaces.

The actors in the art installation, seen both as life-sized 3D prints and as narrators in the HoloLens video

A video still of ‘The Refugees’ Crisis’ which will be projected in the exhibition space, with the sculptures on plinths either side.

The video with actors optionally seen against a transparent background in the HoloLens

Assembly of a life-sized sculpture 3D printed in ten pieces

Making of a 3D sculpture starting with a 3D scan using the Factum Arte Veronica Scanner

Plus this video