Knowledge Box 2 collection, 2009-2012

The original Knowledge Box, created in 1962 by Kenneth Isaacs, who was a visiting instructor at ID at the time, was erected in Crown Hall by Isaacs and ID students and measured about 18 feet on each side. The wooden box, large enough to hold 5 people at once, was intended as an experimental teaching "tool" which, by means of 24 slide projectors mounted on the outside of the box facing in, gave viewers who entered the box through a door which closed behind them, an experience of being surrounded by images completely covering all 6 interior surfaces. Multiple images could be projected on each wall, the floor and ceiling at a time. A sound system was also incorporated into the structure. Isaacs and his students created the original "program" which was shown in the box, but apparently some of the students at the time also created their own alternate programs. (Neither the original Knowledge Box nor any of the original programs survive.) Isaacs' intention was that the Knowledge Box could be used to present information in visual and audio format in an intense and focused manner, thus increasing the person's ability to learn the "lesson" being presented more quickly. The original Knowledge Box received national publicity at the time including coverage in Look and Life. In 2009, as part of the "Learning Modern" exhibit - a collaborative project of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and IIT's Mies van der Rohe Society - which was installed in the Sullivan Galleries (in the former Carson Pirie Scott & Co. building in the Loop), Isaacs and a team of faculty, curators and students from SAIC, the Mies Society, and IIT's College of Architecture (Alex Derdelakos and Chris Strailman) designed and built a recreated version of the original Knowledge Box. "Knowledge Box 2" (this is Isaac's official name for the recreated Box) is a wooden 9-foot cube painted bright blue. Isaacs and members of the team created a new program (2 minutes, 33 seconds long) to be shown in the box during the exhibit. Using historic images from Getty Institute and short historic audio clips, the 2009 program gave the feel of the 1960s era. At the end of the "Learning Modern" exhibit, the Knowledge Box 2 was disassembled and transported to IIT.