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The Canberra Times
The Canberra Times
National
Steve Evans

Why these mysterious boxes are popping up across Canberra

NFSA_STORYBOX_Time Portal_672

If you're wondering what the mysterious boxes which have appeared around Canberra are, they are there to take your mental temperature.

In a nice way.

They are part of an imaginative project to display video and stills pictures but also to give passers-by the chance to say how they are feeling.

It all happens on the "story box" as the installations are called - a big cube in Garema Place and four smaller "plinths" around the city.

The pictures on these installations come from some of the the big institutions in Canberra.

The video, for example, comes from the National Film and Sound Archive, and it shows Canberra nearly 100 years ago (in black and white) and Canberra in 1956 (in glorious autumnal colour).

There are a few old Holdens out for a leisurely (no tail-gating) drive.

On the story box is a "mood ring", and this is where people input their feelings.

As the collective mood changes, the colour pulsing from the cube - the mood ring - changes: yellow for excellent and blue for, well, you guessed it.

"Think of it as an expression of how we're all feeling today, visualised through colour waves," it tells passers-by.

This is not a scientific experiment. The cube in Garema Place looks like an object from space. It is actually a kind of art installation (but without all the highfalutin connotations that sometimes implies).

Each of the five sites will display works from the National Gallery, the National Film and Sound Archive, the ANU, the National Museum, Craft ACT and the Canberra Museum and Gallery.

The story box mood detector. Picture: City Renweal Authority

The project as been put together by the City Renewal Authority and a company called Esem Projects, whose slogan is: "We create for curious minds."

Esem projects said it had a "wider mission to rethink the possibilities of public spaces for shared storytelling".

"We invite audiences to take a moment on their journeys to pause and reflect on the place of wonder, creativity and the imagination in everyday life," said the director of the company, Sarah Barns.

City Renewal Authority's chief executive Malcolm Snow said the project provided "new and thought-provoking ways for Canberrans and visitors alike to explore all that our city centre has to offer".

Patrick McIntyre, chief executive of the National Film and Sound Archive, added: "There's something magical about seeing these moving images in site-specific installations in the heart of the city. They are a wonderful reminder of the history of our community."

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