Illuminatron
Schools project about illuminated letters and typesetting
The Illuminatron is a quirky printing machine that combines a deliberately low-tech look with digital technology (cardboard, flashing lights and sound). Participants arrange magnetic letters onto a small whiteboard to make a short poem sentence or word, and then decorate around these by drawing with dry-wipe markers.
They then place this into our Illuminatron and close the lid. The machine jumps into life, emitting a variety of machine-like noises – delightful recordings of children making the sound of machines – and a satisfying “PING!” indicating that the printing process is over and the print-out can be collected.
The Illuminatron copies and transforms the image on the whiteboard, substituting the magnetic letters with illuminated letterforms, hand drawn in primary school workshops.
Participants setting out their boards and an example of a finished print
The Illuminatron was commissioned by Discover Children's Story Centre for their 2018 Story Feast event. The project included training the centre's outreach workers to run the illuminated letter drawing workshops and an Arts Mark session in one school with Output Arts, at which we explored fantastical machines with the schoolchildren and recorded them making the sounds of their machines to use for the Illuminatron.