Too many knobs : Jack Archer

This project was designed for a collaborative show in Bath, based in an old audio-visual shop. The brief for this show was simple; buy an old piece of electrical equipment and make a response to it. I bought 50 volume/tone control knobs; each one a different size, shape, colour or design.

Taking the idea that these control knobs had been removed/taken from numerous pieces of equipment and now lay redundant and unappreciated; I wanted to give them back a uniting, collective purpose.

With a focus on public interaction and intervention I designed and constructed a box to house the controls; set in a 5 x 9 gridded panel. Each knob controls an individual ‘data’ disk set inside the structure. As each knob is turned, a new piece of information is revealed in the viewing hole directly above it. Each disk has 10 numbered pieces of information, and has been designed so that when every control knob is set to the same number, the whole panel communicates a new message.

The content of the information displayed by the panel ranges from didactic facts and quotes based upon the themes of sound and musical performance, to more ambiguous communication.

This project was exhibited at the Dray Walk Gallery in London as part of D&AD’s New Blood Show 2010.

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