This was originally put together for
the 'Museum of the Unknown' (part of a series of temporary 'museums' at the Oxo
building, south bank, London). I had been thinking of making a high-tech looking fortune
telling machine ever since finding that visitors to Cabaret mechanical theatre often took
my Oracle
machine very seriously.
You have to cut off a piece of hair and put it in the
disk (labelled 3). The disk then rotates, sucking your hair inside. You watch it being
processed - first throught the smoked glass compartment in the middle (with high tech lab
equipment inside), and then on the monitor screen (labelled 4). Sarah did a brilliant
Director movie for the screen. You watch the hair being magnified and the DNA being
extracted. Sometimes your DNA is then e-mailed to the Child Support agency. It is next
analysed - searching for indicative genes (like good looking in jeans genes). It then
predicts a bit of your future and finally gives you a 3D printout (a fortune cookie). |
