Continuing the collection of inventions developed by Dimitri Dutruv, we now move onto the APG (Automatic Platitude Generator). In 2003, Dutruv was charged with developing a machine for automatically writing messages in greeting cards. Creating a series of stamps on rotating gears, with words like "best", "mum", "sweetest", "forever", "teacher", "pearly-lipped", "mechanic", "sorry", "niece", "this year", "tender", which could be printed into any card. It also featured a pulping chamber where cards, paper and leaflets could be fed in and mashed up to make new colours.
Although Dutruv believed that it could have been developed into a perfectly effective working model, his prototype cards were not to the satisfaction of the investor, due to what Dutruv described as "a currently unmanageable platitude randomisation factorisation."
One of the prototype cards produced by the APG. Unfortunately, it was supposed to be a 'commiseration card for the death of a grandparent', but appeared with this design, and the message, "Sweet tender Yom Kippurs, Auntie!" Image supplied by Boby Dimitrov.
©2010 James Mathurin
No comments:
Post a Comment