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The Science of Spying is a travelling exhibition initially designed for the Science Museum in London with a duplicate exhibition designed for Indianapolis (Indiana, USA). The exhibit is due to run for 9months before being re-located. |
One of the primary challenges of the project was to design a scheme that was integral to the exhibit fabric so that it could be taken apart and re-built as the exhibition moved between different locations. |
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The exhibition is principly aimed at 8year old children and takes them through a process of role-play, specifically for the role of becoming a spy. There are primarily five zones to the exhibit, these are Spyskills, Spytech, Spyworld, Spyfutures and the Escape Zone. |
The journey through the exhibit initially tests the abilities of the visitor in Spyskills, they are then equipped and initiated in Spytech. |
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| Spyworld then separates the visitors into a front of house and back of house experience at the spy headquarters, they then move through Spyfutures where visitors can see artefacts that have been designed as potential future spywear. And finally the visitor has the challenge of passing through the Escape Zone in which they have to mimic the movement characteristics of an animal or they will set off the alarms. | The brief set for the exhibition space was minimal; curtailing
natural light ingress and reducing the ambient lighting to a blanket
100lx so that any future exhibit space could easily re-house the
exhibit without any need for future commissioning. |
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| Primarily our responsibility was to give added animation and theatre to the exhibit, this included lighting the satellite dishes from their receiver arm with LED’s. Using spotlights to add extra glare and a feeling of being watched, the spotlights themselves were chosen for their CCTV camera aesthetic. | In Spyskills LED goosenecks were used to highlight instructions and with minimal control aided an interrogation test, causing visitors to be ‘spotlit’ when sat in the hotseat so that they could experience being interrogated. | |
In Spyworld the main front of house area was meant to feel like a reception, to enhance this we selected a wall mounted fitting characterising the aesthetic of the space and providing a clinical white light. |
In contrast to the reception area the back of house area had an
industrial feel, for this space an industrial style bulkhead was
selected. The fitting had to remain sufficiently cool whilst also
being on at all times as it was positioned at low level and would
be accessible by small children. |
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Between the front of house and back of house areas there is a dark room with a one-way mirror where visitors can secretly view into the reception. Beside the mirror we located a linear LED which was operated by a button labelled ‘do not touch this button’. The LED uplit the faces of those viewing through the mirror when a button was pressed.
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In Spyfutures we integrated vertical fluorescents behind different coloured plastic strips, these gave a playful coloured effect. | |
