How this exhibit has developed and evolved from the original concept.

This exhibit has changed dramatically from my original concept, in fact it nearly didn’t happen. I found it impossible to find the graphics I wanted to fulfil the original concept in SL – a concept that required a very time-intensive build, and with no clear images of the adaptive eyewear were available, I had pretty much abandoned this project. Three days before the judging, I was forlornly browsing Adaptive Eyecare’s webpage, sad to abandon the exhibit, when an idea struck me. I did some rapid research and the new concept was born.

Adaptive Eyecare provides adjustable spectacles and the tools and information needed to adjust and set these, to people who don’t have access to trained ophthalmologists and expensive glasses. Where the original concept was to focus on the huge impact that untreated vision problems can have on education, health and ultimately prosperity and longevity (hence the name I See My Life, I See My Future), by creating a number of ‘viewing booths’ for interactive education and experiences. Each booth would allow the visitor to look through a lens which creates the vision for an eye condition (e.g. myopia), and while looking through this to try and perform an everyday task using props in the booth (e.g. identifying an edible plant from a poisonous plant).

This has now evolved into an exhibit where the main focal point is a giant eyeball, partly open, so that the visitor can step inside the eyeball itself and examine and identify the labelled parts. The ‘viewing booths’ have been replaced by ‘eye test stations’ where the visitor can sit and view an image with the vision of myopia (short-sightedness) or hyperopia (long-sightedness), and read about how this condition is created within the eyeball.

The exhibit was always intended to include a giant pair of spectacles modelled on Adaptive Eyecare’s adjustable glasses. Due to space and ‘avatar viewpoint’ limitations in SL this exhibit features just one half of the spectacles. As the beautiful shots of the adaptive glasses only arrived the day before the judging, this may not be a very good physical representation of the syringe mechanism. Even though I expanded the montage shot on Adaptive Eyecare’s webpage it still looked like a screw/key/ ring pull mechanism, and so this is what I have built. I hope to have the time to change this into a syringe before judging commences.

Adaptive Eyecare contain costs by having the spectacles manufactured cheaply and shipped in bulk. This is illustrated on the left of the exhibit by the package on which sits a box of Adaptive Eyecare spectacles and some Snellen eye charts, which are used to assess long and short sightedness.

The emphasis on myopia and hyperopia are maintained in the exhibit, although in the SL exhibit I have included spinning eyes showing cataract and glaucoma defects; cataract from the outside and glaucoma from the inside. Although not correctable by spectacles, these are both conditions that are prevalent and remain largely untreated in the developing world. They therefore hang here as an invitation to visitors to find a practical solution to these conditions too.

Please read the following sections to see how this concept has been realised in SL, can be realised in RL, and more information on this award-winning organisation.

Images and graphics are available on the Assets page.

We hope you enjoy this exhibit!

The I See MY Life, I See My Future Team.