Software and
hardware design
Effective seating
Xor Systems specialises in providing effective, simple solutions for interesting and challenging exhibits, and such was the case when the company became involved with London’s Victoria and Albert Museum.
The museum wanted visitors to the museum to understand the thoughts and emotions that two designers put into their design of two very individual chairs, which the museum exhibited in its 20th Century Gallery.
Jeff Graham designed a single ‘Puppeteer’ unit to provide both the commentaries – allowing visitors to choose which they wished to hear – being given by the artists themselves. Each commentary runs for around 1 minute, has a pause capability and is given through 2 handsets. The sound is stored in WAV files, easily programmed (and updated) in Java.
Designer Danny Lane is a leading exponent of glass sculpture. His monumental arrangements of stacked glass exploit the potential of the medium on a scale attempted by no one else. His Stacking Chair (1993) is composed of stacked, jagged-edged slabs of glass. While this chair can be used as seating, it is primarily an exploration of the physical and aesthetic qualities of the material.
>Xor Systems 01453 843033
V & A Museum 020 7942 2000 www.vam.ac.uk
The other chair is by Mary Little. Mary designs furniture to commission and exhibit. In working towards a rational set of objectives the resulting furniture - usually a surprising composition of forms, materials and colours - can have an exciting and unexpected character and identity.
'Margrèt' comprises of a skeletal structure in tubular steel and minimal upholstery foam, which only touches the body where support or softness is required. Hidden inner formers, quilting, layering, tucking and the cut of the cloth are all techniques used in the chair's construction. Their use, the basis of the character of Margrèt, were inspired by the construction of headwear worn by the wealthy in 16th century Italy.
The two chairs were put together in one display, one a stand with a viewing point. Here a graphic explains who the designer are. In order to convey the thinking behind the two designs, both of the artists were interviewed and these interviews are played on the Puppeteer audio.
Puppeteer is able to provide both channels of sound, each channel working independently of the other, with the output through a handset. Puppeteer is able to record the number of times the commentary is played, along with the time and date for each occasion. This is stored on board in a file that can be read by Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. It can be downloaded from Puppeteer over the network, and Excel can be used to plot graphs of visitor usage, time at the exhibit, peak usage times etc.
