In June, Spike Island Exhbition Services (SIES) technicians supplied and installed a complex projection and audio system for Prem Sahib: Kin, at the Phillida Reid gallery in London.

Transposed from a low-resolution online clip of a dog amongst the rubble of a city under siege, Prem Sahib’s installation combines digital animation, projection mapping and sound, creating a distorted shadow of a stray dog moving across the floors and walls, and a soundscape of low and high frequency sweeps.

Tess Foley (UWE BA Photography)

The installation called for a moving shadow to be projected across both the floors and the walls of the gallery, accompanied by immersive audio. The work needed to be delivered in a gallery space rather than a purpose-built AV environment, so the system had to be designed around the rooms and the aesthetic of the space.

SIES worked closely with the artist, the digital animator and the gallery, plotting and designing the installation in 3D CAD before any work started on site. From this design, a WATCHOUT presentation was programmed and tested at Spike Island ahead of the on-site installation. The installation itself took one week, working across several rooms of the gallery.

To fulfil the installation brief, SIES worked with Dataton WATCHOUT production software and media server system, programming the system to cover floors and walls throughout the gallery space to produce a shadow animation with immersive audio.

Three Epson high-brightness laser projectors with ultra-short throw lenses provided wide coverage and maximum control of image calibration. Custom-made vertical projector mounts, courtesy of Unicol Engineering, allowed the projectors to be mounted at height and out of the viewers’ line of sight. Audio was delivered through Genelec 8050 loudspeakers, chosen for their power and clarity.

Kin reflects what SIES brings to projects with artists and galleries, deep experience of working in this field, technical skill, and high-end equipment more commonly used in mainstream AV production and staging.

SIES is currently working on a new version and installation of the work for the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea, opening in October 2026.