Back in early 2012, the Central Saint Martin’s Narrative Environments graduate Alexander Augustus created a QR code which, when scanned, asked the out-of-work to fill in basic educational and employment history details on an online form, and to submit a picture of their face. Pasting the code all over London, he received up to seven thousand entries a week.
Using the data he received, Augustus’ new light installation in Somerset Houses’ crypt projects an eerie face at the end of a dimly lit tunnel. The face’s features slowly and evocatively morph between the features of each entree. At 24-years-old, Augustus wants to put pressure on the state regarding continuing high levels of UK unemployment, ‘We tend to discuss this huge mass of people as victims, but it is possible to see the threatening side of such a large amount of young and discontent people, too.’
Jack Mills