Postal Voyager Blog

POST BOX

Introduction

The Post Box is an artwork, which secretly documents a parcels journey through the postal system. The parcel looks like any other standard cardboard package from the outside, but contains 2 digital cameras each looking out from opposite ends of the box [through the small holes left when the end flaps of the box are folded over], a digital MP3 audio recorder and a high sensitivity GPS tracking device supplied by Foretrack. In this way the piece captures over 18,000 images of the journey, continuously records the various ambient sounds of the journey for up to 36 hours and tracks it’s position using the Ocellus GPS device – the parcels position is constantly updated live online so the parcels exact location can be viewed at any time. The parcel is intentionally designed to be just too big to fit into a postal sack – which would obviously obscure the cameras view. This piece follows on from Spy Box a previous postal work which can be viewed on Tim Knowles web site at; http://www.timknowles.co.uk/Work/PostalWorks/SpyBox/tabid/296/Default.aspx

Post Box Facts / Technical:

Portable Device

Dimensions; 530mm x 440mm x 240mm Weight; 6.3kg Construction; Aluminium framework clad in double ply cardboard Key components; Cameras; 2 x Praktica DC20. These were purchased from ebay as they are no longer available but provide the best available solution to this projects requirements; small lens, through the lens automatic exposure metering, wide depth of field - 1M to infinity, no zoom function, flash off function, monitor display can be turned off to preserve battery life, takes standard batteries, stays powered up for up to 4mins after previous photograph and uses SD card. Each camera is powered by 4 pairs [in series] of AA batteries wired in parallel. The relay from the Timer circuit is soldered directly to the connections to which the shutter trigger button [now removed] was connected so instead of the button creating the connection and firing the camera the relay switch does this. dio; Au Edirol R-09 digital audio recorder. The R-09 records directly onto an 8 GB Kingston SD card to allow for continuous and extremely long MP3 recordings and eliminate any mechanical recording noise associated with tape or disc based recording. The Edirol R-09 has built in high-grade stereo microphones. GPS; Ocellus S100 by QinetiQ The Ocellus is an extremely high sensitivity GPS tracking device that contains it’s own independent power supply, motion sensors and a SIM card.

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