Finding pipes...

It was during my pulley research where I came across pipes being used for communication. I was looking into methods prisoners used to talk to each other, focusing on the written word. However I came across a prison design which was put in place during the 1800's. This prison concept was based on the 'seperate system' which focused on the punishment of silence. Within the Pentonville penitentiary prisoners were forbidden to talk to each other and stripped of their identity, with each man being a number, holding no name. When together each man had to wear a cap called a 'peak' which covered their face. During exercise prisoners walked in silent rows, guided by holding a rope with knots tied at five yard intervals to keep each man apart from the next. Whilst in chapel each man sat in there own cubical, with their heads only visible to the warder. During hymns the men sang loudly as this was the only time they were allowed to use their voice, some spoke to the man next to him whilst the other men's singing masked their voices. This punishment was based upon the theory that 'a person unable to communicate to other human beings will be broken far more quickly by silence than by any other form of punishment.' However it was another piece of information that interested me, to begin the men were given the luxury of a water - closest (i.e a room with a toilet) however these were later replaced with vile smelling recesses as their pipes were used for communicating throughout the prison. (http://www.historyhome.co.uk/peel/laworder/penton.htm)

After reading this I began to research into pipes as a form of communication and found that they were in fact used more literary as a device, these were named 'voicepipes' or 'speaking tubes'. Voicepipes were often used in ships, the fact that they did not depend on electricity was a large advantage and this ensures that they will work even when physically damaged. These voicepipes often had some form of funnel to speak down, with a hinged lid keeping away any water spray, labelled to the room they were connected with. It was not only ships that used these but also some aeroplanes, this was because a voice could be heard perfectly over a loud engine noise.

Now have you ever wondered why we such expressions like 'I'll get him on the blower', why would we call a phone 'the blower'? This term in fact comes from the days of speaking tubes. Speaking tubes were most commonly found within wealthy homes or offices and were used as a way of communicating from room to room. Each pipe had a removable whistle attached, to begin a conversation Person A would remove his whistle, he would then blow down the tube sounding Person B's whistle, he would then remove his whistle and conversation could take place. A firms statement on performance reported "Two persons standing at each end of a simple tin pipe, 1 inch in diameter, 50 to 100 feet or more long, with several elbows in it, and carried through a half a dozen rooms, can still converse quite readily in a low voice." Another occurrence of a speaking pipe is within expensive cars, this allowed the passenger to speak to the chauffeur through a divide. I find it interesting that such a simple and common object was used by the wealthy. (http://www.aqpl43.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/voicepipe/voicepipe.htm#speak)

After speaking to Tasha about my new found interest in pipes she seemed to know exactly what I was talking about and then said 'oh yeah, like those pipes in the playgrounds?'. Now when she said this I had no idea what she was talking about but it turned out alot of my classmates did, I guess I must have had a deprived childhood. She explained that in playgrounds you could find pipes that travelled underneath some of the playground equipment, they often had covers with holes in and children used them to speak to other children whether they knew them or not. When I heard of this it automatically made me like the idea even more. After creating the cup phones and the pulley I saw my project gaining a childish side, and I quite liked it. I love the idea that when you are a child you find it so easy to talk to other children, making conversation with children that we don't know. Surely as we grow up we're meant to gain confidence? Yet when a situation arises where adults have to talk to a stranger it is easy to feel intimidated. I know I cant change this attitude with the use of pipes but perhaps I can encourage people to act a little more childish and loosen up in the name of art.

After I had heard about these playground pipes I thought it would be stupid of me not to go and visit them since as their was apparently one in a restaurants playground just 10 minutes walk away. So that same day me and Tasha walked to Mascrat Manor on a hunt for some pipes to play with. Now I have to say this was a strange experience since as they're were children playing on this very small playground and I had to understand that I needed to be careful when trying to take photographs of the pipes.