GEOLOGICAL MUSEUM

Geological Museum 1975

In 1976 I was contracted to the Geological Mueeum, South Kensington as an audio visual engineer, both servicing existing equipment and designing new displays. In those days all sound was on magnetic tape and pictures projected from slides or cine film.

Over the 8 years I wes there I worked on various new exhibitions including 'Britian Before Man', 'Oil and Gas' 'Brirish Fossils' and 'Treasures of the Earth'. For the Treasures exhibition I developed the first displays controlled by computer, using Commodore 'Pets'. The first ones controlled Carousel projectors but then were further developed for the computer screen to show the images. Later we moved to a computer with a colour screen. Another first was that the program to run the display in 'Treasures' was made on a 12" videodisk.

Later displays were based around the Atari computer with its high resolution colour screen,

Sadly with the advent of the Falklands war NERC (National Environment Research Council) funding was removed and the Geologicasl Museum passed inti the hands of the Natural History Muiseum. My contract was terminated but I continued to work with them on a 'job to job' basis.

Bob Geary was on the design team, a wonderful artist, brilliant charactureist with his sketches of the staff. He did the internal Christmas cards below showing the Design Department staff

The Geological Museum as it was in 1977.Photo shows the gemstone cases and the entrance to The Story of The Earth in the distance	Designed by Sir James Gardner 1972
First gallery showing the universe	Rock sample from the first Apollo trip	Princess Margaret opening 'Treasures of the Earth' gallery around 1980
The gallery had a house and garage cut in section. Pressing buttons showed which minerals had been used in an item by fibre optics showing in the cut face	Revamped gallery 1980	There were about 10 interactive booths to discover more about the Earth's treasures
Pictures or graphics shown on the screen to the right and relative text on the computer screen to the left, No idea why it shows an aeroplane	Laserdisk produces photo and relevant text on 2 screens	This gallery had a house cut in section and push buttons lit fibre optic lamps showing which minerals had been used in the item
A Ford Fiesta cut section with fibre optic lights in the cut face. Pressing the button of an element showed where it had been used to make the car	Ian Mercer holding the hand control 1977?	Showing how ground movements could bring the house down
Projects a slowly continuous moving scene to tell a story. This one tracks from left to right as it was for Abu Dhabi and worked with arabic text	Another section of a panorama image. The full image was over 5 feet long, moving slowly through the projector and with a sound track to tell the story	From The Story of the Earth 1972
	Story of the Earth display of a volcano with a releastic lava flow 1977	Runs an edlless loop of 1/4" tape. Has mono sound track and an AV track to change the slides
Fitted in front of a Kodak Carousel projector with a special high power lamp it produced a 'fade out' in from the edges. Shown open	Shown closed	Animated model showing changing the bit on a drill
Shows the chances of finding oil underground. 3 wheels spin had to end up; Old carboniferous forest, Heat and pressure and salt in the rocks	For visitor participation, plays like 'snakes and ladders'	Displays of minerals and their uses
I'm second on the left. 1978	I'm on the right end - probably 1977. Jane, Bob (the artist),Sheila,Giles, Andy, Arnold and me

Geological Museum 1975

The Geological Museum as it was in 1977.Photo shows the gemstone cases and the entrance to The Story of The Earth in the distance

Designed by Sir James Gardner 1972

First gallery showing the universe

Rock sample from the first Apollo trip

Princess Margaret opening 'Treasures of the Earth' gallery around 1980

The gallery had a house and garage cut in section. Pressing buttons showed which minerals had been used in an item by fibre optics showing in the cut face

Revamped gallery 1980

There were about 10 interactive booths to discover more about the Earth's treasures

Pictures or graphics shown on the screen to the right and relative text on the computer screen to the left, No idea why it shows an aeroplane

Laserdisk produces photo and relevant text on 2 screens

This gallery had a house cut in section and push buttons lit fibre optic lamps showing which minerals had been used in the item

A Ford Fiesta cut section with fibre optic lights in the cut face. Pressing the button of an element showed where it had been used to make the car

Ian Mercer holding the hand control 1977?

Showing how ground movements could bring the house down

Projects a slowly continuous moving scene to tell a story. This one tracks from left to right as it was for Abu Dhabi and worked with arabic text

Another section of a panorama image. The full image was over 5 feet long, moving slowly through the projector and with a sound track to tell the story

From The Story of the Earth 1972

Story of the Earth display of a volcano with a releastic lava flow 1977

Runs an edlless loop of 1/4" tape. Has mono sound track and an AV track to change the slides

Fitted in front of a Kodak Carousel projector with a special high power lamp it produced a 'fade out' in from the edges. Shown open

Shown closed

Animated model showing changing the bit on a drill

Shows the chances of finding oil underground. 3 wheels spin had to end up; Old carboniferous forest, Heat and pressure and salt in the rocks

For visitor participation, plays like 'snakes and ladders'

Displays of minerals and their uses

I'm second on the left. 1978

I'm on the right end - probably 1977. Jane, Bob (the artist),Sheila,Giles, Andy, Arnold and me