Videos of the Jewelry Box

Below are two videos of the box and the technology working (the second one shows the exterior of the box a little bit as well as the inside).  We had some trouble with fitting the "diamond mine" facade into the actual box.  First it was way too big so we trimmed it down, but it was still too snug and the protruding gems kept snagging the LED strip off the inside of the box.  The third time fixed the problem, but we were left with a decent gap all the way around, so we will be fixing that.

I love how the actual box came out.  The design is really simple, but the color of the stain as well as the quote give the box a sense of "specialness", for lack of a better word.  The over-sized nature of the box likens it to something between a jewelry box, a cigar box, and a treasure chest - all of which function as containers for precious items.  The viewer may assume that whatever the box contains is something highly esteemed.  While approaching the box, the viewer hears the whistling sounds of a windy cavern, attracting their curiosity to see what is inside.  When the box is opened, a rocky surface encrusted with gems begins to glow green.  Although we originally wanted the gems to be illuminated in blue, due to our technical difficulties with the blue LEDs, we were forced to switch to green, but it turned out to be a change for the better.  Green is very symbolic in reference to greediness, such as the expression "green with envy" as well as slang terms for money, further supporting our concepts of consumption, excess, greediness, and temptation.  The green glow behind the gems has a creepier feel than I expected.  I imagined it just making the gems twinkle tauntingly, but it actually gives them a kind of eeriness.

The quote we chose for the front of the box was "Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed", spoken by Gandhi.  We thought it was very fitting because it plays on the irony that diamonds come from the earth and there are plenty of them, but there will never be enough of them to satisfy humanity's desire for "more and bigger".  Just like oil, one day we will run out of naturally formed diamonds.  They have already started artificially forming them in labs by mimicking the conditions of the earth's temperature, pressure, and composition, just expediting the process.

Reiterating the phrase from the previous paragraph, "more" and "bigger" are abstract ideas that can be applied to any desired consumer good.  We are always looking to supersize things and collect things,  but there is something about both of those yearnings that is never quite satiated.  The jewelry box exists in an imagined, future generation in which people have their own diamond mines, for convenience and for multiplicity.  Perhaps a person's desire will be so extreme and unquenchable that they constantly need more gems, reforming new ones where the last one was taken.

https://vimeo.com/55247164

https://vimeo.com/55247165