Prof. Paul Sermon - RAE 2008 Returnable Research Outputs
Creative Technology Research Group, Art & Design, The University of Salford

Output 1: The Teleporter Zone

Project Links:

http://www.gsttcharity.org.uk/projects/evelina.html (Guy's & St Thomas' Charity: Evelina Hospital Project Description)

http://www.architecture.com/go/Architecture/Also/Awards_5399.html (RIBA Stirling Award Listing)

http://creativetechnology.salford.ac.uk/paulsermon/teleporter/ (Project Description by Paul Sermon: The Teleporter Zone)

http://www.leonardo.info/ (Leonardo/ISAST: The MIT Press Journals)

The Teleporter Zone is one of five permanent artworks incorporated within the outpatients waiting area of the new Evelina Children’s Hospital at St Thomas’ London, opened in October 2005. Envisaged by healthcare strategists “Rawlinson-Kelly-Whittlestone” and designed by “Hopkins Architects”, this hospital has been proclaimed as one of the UK’s foremost and innovative NHS projects. Short listed for the 2006 RIBA Stirling Prize, for which these art installations played a significant role.

"The new Evelina Children's Hospital has been designed around the needs of children and their families. Its underlying philosophy is to create a hospital that does not feel like a hospital”.

Based on this philosophy, The Teleporter Zone was designed to enable children to perform and interact in virtual environments whilst distracting them (and their families and carers) from the worries and anxieties of being in the hospital and to speed up the time spent waiting. An ‘s’ shaped curved wall ensured that children sitting on either side were not be able to see each other. However, video monitors displayed the participants sitting together within computer animated backgrounds, providing patients with a chance to be ‘transported’ from the confines of the hospital waiting area to a different virtual ‘time and space’.

Following the installation, the artist's article “The Teleporter Zone” has been published in the international peer reviewed journal “Leonardo Vol. 40, No. 5, October 2007”, MIT Press, documenting its research and evaluation in the arts and healthcare context.

Funded by the NHS Charitable Foundation with a grant of £34,000 this is the first telematic art installation to have been specifically commissioned for a children’s hospital, through a close working relationship with the NHS Evelina Hospital project team, including Hopkins & Partners (Architects), Nairi Sahakian Contemporary Art (Arts Consultant), and The NHS Charitable Foundation (Commissioning Body).