Software and
hardware design
Telectroscope - linking New York to London
Xor Systems was asked to develop the controlling electronics in the ticket machine for the London end of the Telectroscope.
Photo: Gill Rickson
The telectroscope was an installation by the artist Paul St George. It was produced by Artichoke, sponsored by Tiscali and was on the South Bank between 22nd May and 15th June 2008. You can find more detail at the dedicated web site.
This installation caused a huge interest, with articles in all the major newspapers, and the public responded with great enthusiasm, with pictures and videos all over the Internet. The idea was simple - to provide a transatlantic link between New York and London, using what was effectively a web cam. Londoners and New Yorkers could study each other at great length, in real time, with Brooklyn Bridge in the background in New York and Tower Bridge in London.
Photo: Charlotte Gilhooly
Some of the images on this page have been contributed by members of flickr.com; these are their pages on flickr :
Charlotte Gilhooly
Gill Rickson
Ticket booth
We got involved in building the ticket booth. This was designed and built by the Glue Factory in London, and they asked us to provide the controlling electronics for an animatronic and to provide the ticket machine to print tickets.
The whole concept was based on the arms of the artist signing tickets as they were purchased. The arms were controlled by motors and limit switches; we drove the motors, monitored the limit switches and synchronised the whole thing. We played sound during the action to provide some feel of a vast machine printing the ticket. The Glue Factory made the wheeled unit that comprised the whole ticket booth.
Photo: Charlotte Gilhooly
The system is driven by a Puppeteer board, with a program written in Java to control the arms. The Puppeteer board has a built-in real-time clock, so it knows the current date and time and prints a ticket based on that.
Glue Factory 020 855 55722
Xor Systems 01285 700763