Media Lab
The Media Lab celebrates the technologies, processes and people that have shaped the South West's film and photographic heritage.
Over 1,000 still images and moving images, and over 300 objects have been brought together for this gallery from the extensive social history, photographic and moving image collections preserved at The Box.
Media interactives throughout the gallery help you to discover a deeper range of narratives and stories by visiting early photographic studios and meeting some of our home-grown pioneers. You can experience the growth of cinema and projection in the city and tune into examples of early sound and local radio.
A mass display of cameras and cine cameras complement projections of images from local photographers such as Roy Westlake, Dermot Fitzgerald and the City Engineers.
Our mock TV studio, developed in partnership with BBC South West, offers visitors the chance to present the news; selecting from clips which draw on the rich material within the BBC News Archive. Classic “I remember when” moments appear on our mass retro-display of television sets featuring clips from Westward and TSW.
One of the original mechanical Gus Honeybuns, the beloved mascot of Westward and TSW is on display here too, seated alongside some fascinating examples of film and tape editing equipment used by the television broadcasters based here in the city.
Our impressive Big Screen covers three walls of the gallery and offers the chance to enjoy moments from the past drawn from the moving image collections whilst also serving as a platform to engage with new digital works in response to The Box's dynamic cultural programme.
At the heart of the gallery is the story of how media experimentation and creativity evolved and continues to evolve in the city and the wider South West region.
With objects, archives and digital assets drawn from across the full breadth of the collections preserved at The Box, our Media Lab gallery presents an immersive, and often nostalgic, journey through the lenses of our early photographic and filmmaking pioneers, and provides unique insights into the emerging innovations being developed by creative digital media pioneers of the future and today.