A first for electricity

FifeX worked with Lyndsey Clark to produce some exhibits for Cragside House.

Lyndey's demo is part of a project with some science classes for visitors to the venue - they will learn that Cragside was one of the first places to make use of electricity. One of the devices they first powered was a copper light with a curious and distinctly unsafe method of passing the electricity from the source to the bulb.

In our mock-up, users can see some copper jugs with 3D-printed modifications and they're a bit safer than the original!

Botanics

FifeX worked with StudioArc to produce a new installation for the Botanics in Edinburgh. The display, about biodiversity, fills one of the units that was already in place. It has a range of activities like feely boxes but its main attraction is the large rotating triangles which show users the incredible range of animals and plants that are all around them in Edinburgh. The unit presented us with significant challenges as we tried to manipulate five huge triangles with sub-mm accuracy... but we got there! If you go to the Botanics, you can't miss it!

Our Olis

FifeX worked with the outreach team at Unversity of Cambridge to produce some small table-top interactives about stem cells. A lot of the project involved manipulating graphics of oligodendrocytes to make sure that we could fit the electronics in and make the whole thing work practically whilst also being scientifically accurate.

We worked alongside their own in-house team who produced a second set of interactives and we're pleased to say they both came out looking like they belonged together.

We're looking forward to more collaborations with Becky and the team at Cambridge!

Dundee Design Festival

FifeX was delighted to be involved in the Dundee Design Festival, which was once again an enormous success. We built a bespoke display around a dot matrix printer which spewed out maps for visitors with its characteristic soundtrack!

However 2017 sees us collaborate with two artists as part of the Residency Programme.

Three projects were announced and in ours we are teaming up with Tommy Perman and Simon Kirby.

To find out a bit more about this and see some footage of the original conversations, visit the DDF website

Spring Cleaning

At this time of year, FifeX always has a lot of maintenance jobs to help bring things up to scratch for the spring and summer seasons. Today, Ken and Dom were in Fort George installing a new Corian table top for the jigsaw interactive and making a few touch-ups to the paintwork in the exhibition. We are also looking forward to putting in some more fireplaces as part of the developments in the barracks - watch this space!

Straightening the Curve

Another new venue to add to our list - FifeX has just returned from the Arbroath Abbey Visitor Centre. Part of their display features some huge sweeping curves and some AV monitors which are all flat - a perfect job for a Friday!

FifeX sorted out the gaps and got it tidied up ready for their busy summer season.

Back to MUSA

MUSA was the site of one of FifeX's early museum installs and over the last few weeks we have been doing a few updates to the exhibits and their housing. Most of the working parts have held up really well in what is almost ten years but a few cosmetic improvements have been made! We have started using Corian more and more for surfaces that will be getting abuse and the photo on the right shows our new 'glasses holders' designed and produced by Dom in 'Deep Nocturne' - hopefully these will stand up well and can be sanded to look like new in a few years!