Lutti is more than just an arts collective. We intersect between arts, tech, activism, and history. The whole inspiration for me came from a UNESCO report that said that 90% of all artwork and artifacts based in Africa actually live outside of Africa. And that was something that was deeply unsettling for me, but also something that I've always wanted to have some hand to change.

Lutti describe their project as a digital heist. They capture objects on display in the British Museum digitally, but say this doesn't break the Museum's rules, which allow 3D scanning by visitors for non-commercial use.

We're using LiDAR technology So making scans, going around the different artifacts, scanning them, and then taking that data that we've retrieved, and then using those for AI experiences, NFTs, and different installations as well.

Their most recent project involved the Rosetta Stone, an ancient slab used by Egyptians to study hieroglyphics. Using free software from the company Snap, they were able to display it virtually in Egypt.

The actual position where the Rosetta Stone is from is Citadel in Rachid. Simply, you just need a AR-enabled device, Snapchat, and then you can view that in its position in Rachid. Lens Studio has this technology called Custom Location AR, which is basically where you can geo-locate a digital asset or a digital thing in its actual position. It starts with the the story, the Rosetta Stone, known as the Hijabashid.

And this appears before people in scale of what it is. And the cool thing about AR is you can see it as it looks now, but also how it will have looked in the past.

Exactly. How it originally looked, right? And what a lot of people don't know is that it's actually a fracture of the original stone. So part of our journey was to actually rebuild the Rosetta Stone.

What What do you hope people get out of using this and experiencing this?

With this whole digitization of artifacts, I see this more as something that's for the future and for the younger generation. And most of the user base for Snapchat is people that are a lot younger than me, like the Gen Zs and things like that. So I saw this as the best app, but then also because of the ease of the use for the technology.

Where and how objects are displayed is often debated. The British Museum told us there has been no formal request from the Egyptian government for the Rosetta Stone to be repatriated, and they say they work with colleagues there on exhibitions and research.

There should be at least alternative methods for us to engage with culture and history that are commercialized as well, not not just having the institution of the museum running the whole shop.

I guess they would say, though, they are engaging in the very fact that you're allowed to go into the museum and take a 3D scan, and they would say they're doing this themselves and working with lots of different projects around the world.

Yeah, it's true. Because I remember when I saw that in their terms and conditions that you're allowed to make a 3D scan, and I was just like, why they would put that in the terms and conditions? But maybe they never thought of somebody like me going in and doing this and actually thinking about a digital repaturation. Maybe they didn't think that was something that's important, which even if you think about today, it's probably not so much important today. But for the future, I definitely believe that the digital is going to be the future.