What if machines could think or experience emotions? Observing anachronistic machines has prompted us to wonder whether we truly comprehend these human creations. They often act out, get stubborn and defensive, take their time, or start wailing when you ask them to work.

‘(Not) Jammed’ is an interactive installation through which we (DuctTape Collective) try to break free from the notion of carefulness around technology and give an opportunity to ourselves and the viewers to explore what can be done with a printer outside the constraints of its intended use. The work invites the visitor to engage with a dot matrix printer named Scott and in this way to actively participate in the production process behind printmaking. The installation facilitates a dialogue between people and a mischievous machine, in which the viewer is granted the role of a content provider, while the printer intervenes in the process of printing and acts as the layout designer.

Visitors can enter a “Scott’s Listening” zone, where they can talk directly to him, share a secret, read a poem or sing a song, where Scott will detect the speech and print out his own interpretation of it. Similar to how people sometimes misinterpret others’ words or drift off during a conversation, Scott is not entirely precise in translating human input, mishearing sentences and twisting their original meaning. Further along he selects the font, size, leading and composition of the printed speech based on the pitch of his own distinctive printing sounds.

The work is produced using Google API speech to text recognition and sending the text file for print at a certain time period. For changing the layout we use a servo motor that manually presses the font and size menu of the dot matrix printer, while the paper is manually rolled by a stepper motor. Both motors use the same principle of operation, rotating based on the sound pitch of the printing process.