Stage translations

Question number one: should this be entirely mechanical? An analogue that is based in simple machine physics might be closest to a true analogue, if we want to create a real contrast between the two systems. But, since the system I'm studying is rooted in both digital and tactile realms, perhaps the use of images, projection, screens and chemical processes can come into play. An unholy marriage of combustion, brute mechanics, chemical reactions and electronics.

The above diagram has been helpful. This may be simply a rhetorical trick, but perhaps those mental manipulations I am trying to replicate, the very very abstract manipulation of mental images into goal states, will be moments of interaction with actual people. The manipulations are incredibly complex, and the robotics required by it are beyond my capacities. What better fitting analogue than the complexity, yet commonality, of the human hand to be involved. This also will work as a polemic, again creating much needed contrast.