Providence firm designs for London Science Museum

THE UNIVERSAL ORCHESTRA at the Google/Tellart designed Web Lab exhibit at the London Science Museum. / COURTESY TELLART
THE UNIVERSAL ORCHESTRA at the Google/Tellart designed Web Lab exhibit at the London Science Museum. / COURTESY TELLART

PROVIDENCE – Tellart – a design firm founded and headquartered in Providence – teamed up with Google Creative Lab to develop Web Lab, an interactive exhibit at London’s Science Museum.

The recently launched Web Lab is a year-long exhibition featuring a series of interactive “Chrome Experiments” designed to bring the Internet to life.

“Every project Tellart does involves connecting physical things and the Internet. We believe that the networks that connect objects and architecture and the data that flow through them are as much a part of their form as their physical shape. Web Lab is the ultimate example of this in our work to date,” Tellart CEO Matt Cottam said in prepared remarks.

Visitors to the Science Museum will be able to interact with five distinct experiments – the Universal Orchestra, Sketchbots, Data Tracer, Teleporter and Lab Tag Explorer – designed to bring technology to life, according to a Tellart release.

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The Universal Orchestra is an Internet-powered eight-piece orchestra, and Sketchbots are custom-built robots, which take photographs and then sketch them in sand.

The Data Tracer exhibit is a tool to trace where the world’s online information is physically stored and the Teleporter is a series of Web-enabled periscopes, through which users can “instantly access the world, including an undersea kelp forest in South Africa and a miniature kinetic Earth in Germany.”

The final portion of the exhibit, the Lab Tag Explorer, is a visualization that groups and categorizes all Web Lab visitors from around the world.

“With each of the five experiment groups, Tellart aimed to synthesize the digital and the physical, not just layer them. Remove the Web connectivity and the robots are just piles of aluminum – these machines were born to live on the network and every part of their anatomy is optimized for that,” said Cottam.

The Web Lab is initially launching in ‘Beta.’ Both Google and the Science Museum intend to improve upon the Web Lab experience after hearing from digital and in-museum visitors.

Along with Google, Tellart worked alongside Universal Design Studio, MAP, B-Reel, Karsten Schmidt and Fraser Randall.

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