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Queen Mary academic launches ‘Babble Machine’ sound installation at Science Museum

Dr Katy Price, from the School of English and Drama, at Queen Mary, University of London, has launched a sound installation in collaboration with the Science Museum.

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Babble Machine
Babble Machine

As part of the Museum’s Lates series, the installation, known as ‘Babble Machine’ explores the sound world of early radio in a multi-layered piece, comprising archive recordings, text collage and radio interference.

The installation takes its name from the news radio-like transmitter predicted by H.G. Wells in his novel, ‘The Sleeper Awakes’ (1899) and includes an array of vintage radio horns, receivers and suspended objects eerily emitting sounds from the past and present, as well as excerpts from the Radio Times.

It has been devised by Aleksander Kolkowski, the Science Museum’s artist-in-residence, alongside Dr Price and Alison Hess of the Museum’s ‘2LO’ exhibition.

Dr Price explains: “I became involved in the project in my combined capacity as a historian of science and a poet who works with technology.”

The ‘Babble Machine’ is now on show at the Science Museum until 2nd December 2012, 12:30pm to 5:30pm and admission is free.

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