So Simple Machine

//So Simple Machine

This project concentrated on the use of ciphers within a modern post office and the way in which these messages are displayed for the recipients. The project was located within an old bus depot in Lewes, East Sussex. Most of the depot was unused, artist’s studios and a café have occupied parts of the first floor, the ground floor is mainly unoccupied, some parts are used as storage for local organisations. I paid particular attention to what was once the controller’s office, this interest was due to its former purpose, the room is quietly tucked away from other parts of the depot, it only has one door in which to enter and exit, unlike other rooms. The controllers office had a maze of cables running in and out giving a sense that this was once a communication hub, a perfect place for ciphered messages to be decoded and read by the recipients.
A main part of the project was to use machine, be able to dismantle this machine and apply it to another function. The machine that I used was a super 8projector, paying particular interest to the mechanisms for the lens, theshutter gate and movement of the film I wanted to convey these to the user andmake it an interactive experience, using light and projection is a fantasticway of applying this. By using the secluded room, the ‘fat’ controllers office,the spool of ciphered message would pass around the room, around the occupantand projecting the message on the wall to be viewed.
Icreated experiential drawings to convey these ideas, drawing on plywood andexpressing the use of light and projection with paint and other materials.Models were created to explore ideas of this, using light and acrylic toexperiment with the way in which light could be used for the design.