The National Archives – Spirit of Invention Exhibition

The National Archives are guardians of over 1000 years of iconic national documents. They not only store these documents but through their dedicated and ever changing exhibition space, utilise them to create immersive and informative displays.

Their latest exhibition – ‘Spirit of Invention’ – invites visitors (with an emphasis on a younger audience) to discover the past and present of creativity, with a look at ingenious designs from the Victorian era to the modern day.

We’ve worked with The National Archives on multiple occasions already, our short-throw projectors and video players for example have been used for the previous Treason and 1920’s: Beyond the Roar exhibitions. The Spirit of Invention exhibition is no different, however it features a selection of new hardware as well – such as our Android Tablets (pictured above), alongside other commercial or bespoke AV elements, helping bring a layer of memorable interpretation to this exciting space.

Off in the distance in the above image is another of our 15″ Android Tablets, set to loop content relevant to the wearable inventions surrounding it. In the foreground you can see a selection of commercial items we were tasked with preparing for public display.

Above are Friendship Lamps, tapping one will change the colour on both, designed to show somebody you care over long distances. Below is an accessible keyboard designed to help people with disabilities communicate. Beside that you can see a pair of XREAL Air glasses – which when used with xrai software are able to subtitle speech in realtime, ideal for translations or people with hearing difficulties.

Elsewhere two short-throw projectors are put to good use again, with the first displaying videos by the YouTuber Colin Furze, who built the impressive hoverbike displayed alongside.

While the second short-throw projector can be found in an area focusing on advancements that benefit homes across the country, including construction, lighting, heating and facial recognition door locks.

Here you can see the facial recognition technology on display, amazingly designed by a school child utilising a Raspberry Pi as the controller. We were tasked with preparing this ingenious device for public demonstration.

Once again The National Archives have created an exciting yet informative exhibition – exploring human creativity both past and preset.

(Exhibition photography by Luke Hayes).