The Oramics Machine at the Science Museum

Hello. Martin here, in my FIRST EVER BLOG!!

So, DAY 1 in the The Oramics Machine household. Interesting. Verrrrry interesting. A very nice bunch of people gathered around a table in a very fine old building [the former Post Office Saving Bank HQ in West Kensington, now a huge museum store. In it's heyday, 4000 clerks making hand-written entries for every time someone deposited or withdraw cash in a Post Office, unique files for every single person holding an account in every single branch across the whole of the UK. Basically a giant human computer. All the women worked at one end, and all the men at the other. Quite right too].

We made our way through the cool, silent, labyrinthine corridors of the building to the conference room, half expecting to get picked off one by one by some long-forgotten feral zombie bank clerk, tiled walls splashed with the blood of nervous geeks in the very temple of geekdom. As it happens, an alarm went off warning us that a door had been open too long. Geeks.

Tim Boon and Merel van der Vaart are our contacts with the project. Tim - Chief Curator no less, is a likable Science Museum stalwart and the kind of self-confessed geek ("self built analogue synth in loft...") that made people warm to him. Merel is fairly new to the museum, but handled her job of (presumably) project manager with enthusiasm, earnest concern for our well being, and good humour.

The assembled group are mostly London based musicians, composers or music artists of one form or another. 12 Good Men And Women. [ratio: 9:3] Couple of Goldsmiths PhD lads, a software designer (for a WELL KNOWN UK music software company....) journalist, students, enthusiasts. I guess I kind of fall into the latter category.

I'm sure I'll write more about my fellow co-curators as I get to know them more. And they'll probably contribute to the canon about the subject online too.

The Oramics Machine was.... in the corner of a storeroom, covered in plastic, and in bits, but clean, and being lovingly treated. We're going to be designing an exhibition to support the machine when it goes on display, along with a group of 'I was there' Radiophonic Workshop alumni from back in Daphne Oram's time. It will be nice if we get to meet them.

We had a chat, ate muffins and played one another our music. I chose Play With Fire, Vile Electrodes de facto 'first single'. As the only person who represented himself with a pop song, my contribution seemed a little trite compared to some of the conceptual and left-field pieces contributed by some of the others, which were amazing, weird, fun and exciting but that was my reason for choosing it really - the Oramics Machine is a piece of obscure, bizarre and pretty avant garde hardware, even by today's standards. To exhibit it at the Science Museum means finding a way to make it understandable - and exciting to - everyone, not just academics, specialists and nerds. PWF was my little chance to say that the Masses need their Opium. Or maybe i just couldn't find a more appropriate track. Who knows.

Whichever may be true, we are going to need to translate our geeky enthusiasm into an energy and a language that everyone can share.

This is our task. We have [gladly!] chosen to accept it.