The Teller of Fortunes

notes

by Richard Ong

“The Teller Of Fortunes” is a tribute to the penny-arcade days in the early part of the 20th century. For cost of a single penny, electric fortune-teller machines would give the player a message that “foretold” a future event in his/her life.

For this project, I wanted to include a touch of surrealism by including images from the last two centuries that depict an inescapable and preordained future such as the double-helix DNA, the all-seeing eye, crystal divination on the teller’s chest and the calculated set of motions driven by the Victorian-style internal clockwork mechanism.

The exposed cavity inside the chest shows a complex set of gears and levers inspired by Charles Babbage’s Differential Engine.