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Student Workshop Amsterdam

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Earthbound Hardware workshop recap

Day 1

Just before the beginning of the summer the Connecting Otherwise project team, more precisely the members of the Earthbound Hardware work package have gathered in the morning, together with a group of around 20 participants, at the Buurtwerkplaats Noorderhof, near the Sloterplas, to begin the first phase of a two day workshop that has been in the planning for the last many months. The occassion brought together students from the Rietveld Academy and Sandberg Instituut as well as low(and slow) tech electronics and digital technology enthousiasts, hacktivists, PhD candidates and artist researchers from the field. Esra Sakir visual artist with extensive knowledge of and a personal connection to the local clay conditions was invited to lead the programme, accompanied by the workpackage team: Heerko van der Kooij, Amalie ‘Sveske’ Ourø, Sophie Refsgaard, Benedetta Pompili, Dorine van Meel and Márk Redele.

Throughout the activity the group has explored notions around less extractive, more regenerative approaches to technology bringing attention to the material conditions and consequences of digital technologies while inviting the participants to co-create an iteration of the Clay PCB, an electronic circuit board built on clay base with recycled components, originally developed by Patrícia J. Reis & Stefanie Wuschitz of the Feminist Hacking research project.

The group began with an excursion to several water bodies, streams and channels near the Sloterplas lake, equipped with manual tools, shovels, diggers and buckets led by Esra to specific spots known to be rich with clayish earth. Some has carried sound recorders and cameras documenting the process contributing to a body of artifacts to be brought forward as replicable research methodologies and workshop formats for regenerative digital practices, the shared ambition between the work packages of the Connecting Otherwise research project.

While keeping in mind the principle of taking as little as needed, we gathered earth from holes dug deep below the water line each of which yielded varying qualities of clay that could only be guessed at that point by the consistency and porosity of the material. We were taught the ring test: make a snake and roll the dirt around a finger; if it stays compact without cracks, it may be promising clay. Time was taken to connect to the environment with senses heightened by silent exercises of observing and touching and words of appreciation were collectively uttered to acknowledge the resources lifted from the ground and to remind ourselves to the indigenous principles of The Honorable Harvest. The group headed back to first have lunch and to receive an introduction to the Buurtwerkplaats by our host Clair.

In the afternoon the clay was labelled by origin, portioned, diluted with water and processed with a large electric drill with a mixer head emulsifying the harvest into a homogenous slurry. By squeezing it through fine wire mesh, twigs, rocks and other larger residues were filtered leaving behind a smooth mixture of clay parts and sand. Ideally, as little sand as possible.

We spread the content of the buckets onto dry newspaper that covered the floor of the patio at this point. The expectation was that the porous texture of the paper would remove the undesired water content from the clay leaving us with the perfect sculptable consistency needed to shape the base of the circuit boards. This did happen eventually, alas, with the help of hairdryers and fans, inviting the ghost of institutional schedules and paid hours, speeding through the natural work of drying.

Once the spread out material reached the desired dryness, we all picked up a handful of clay and shaped it into a ball ready to be pressed into shape. Some of us simultaneously created uniform clay samples to categorize and archive the material qualities of the clay according to their respective source locations. Yet another group has created flute-like instruments that we planned to activate when we receive a signal from the clay PCB. It was brought to our attention by Benedetta that the clay we collected contains large amounts of sand that might be a problem during the firing process.

Before the workshop, a 3D-printed mold was created with an imprint of all the conductive features of the PCB. We used this tool as a cookie cutter to regulate our squished and flattened blobs of clay into a series of hexagons with dents on their surface, waiting to be filled with conductive material the next day.

The finished shapes were put to rest for the night, covered with sheets of newspaper and plastic.

Day 2

We met again after lunch and split into two groups, one of which took responsibility for creating a bonfire and lining it with heat resistant bricks borrowed from the Ceramic Department of the Rietveld Academie. There has been some internal debate on whether the bricks were necessary as in the initial experiment conducted by Feminist Hacking, a plain bonfire was used. The fire was meant to bring the clay pieces to a temperature of 700-800C yielding a low-fired body similar to bisque firing.

Simultaneously, another group has moved inside the cabin to apply paint made from recycled silver as a conductive substrate to the features pressed into the clay pieces with the hexagonal mould at the end of the previous workshop day. Dipping toothpicks and brushes into the small glass vial we covered our faces with masks protecting against fumes and clay powder. The entangled silvery channels were meant to provide the layout to which recycled electronic parts, processing units, switches, batteries might be attached to eventually turn the clay piece into a functioning microcomputer. Applying the silver glaze before firing proved to be a wrong decision as some of it had become nonconductive and had to be reapplied later.

At an uneventful moment, we sat around the fire and shared literature, text fragments relating to the ecosystems of material and labour practices surrounding digital infrastructures, material workplaces and resource extraction. One text arrived from our research partner in Jatiwangi Indonesia, Ismal who will run another iteration of the workshop in the community context of the Jatiwangi Art Factory. At the time of the workshop he was on a research excursion to the volcanic mountains of Majalengka and he sent us a question to consider during the day: how to include soil in the development of policy? He also offered a blessing to the group in shape of an ancient Sundanese text fragment:

*”If there was the past, there is the present. If there were no past, there would be no present. There is a stump. There is a stem. If there were no stump, there would be no stem. Because there is a tree stump, there is a fallen lord.” *

During the day the shapes were slowly fed into the flames, waiting on the outer edge for a while to acclimatize to the temperatures and then moving into the center of the pit. The fire was covered with a large metal lid to keep the temperature under control. The smell of burning birch wood provided the atmosphere for the patient standing-around, lifting and looking throughout the afternoon. Most pieces survived the firing without cracking which warranted a short celebration.

It turned out that the 3d printed PCB pattern was mirrored and so the group concluded that the final result will stand no chance of operating as the electric wiring wouldn’t correspond to the legs of the microchip, the Atmega328, installed in the center of the clay piece. The group brainstormed different options in response to the contingency, which we all recognized as a natural part of any creative making process: flip the microchip upside-down, remake the tiles in a ceramic studio, repeat the workshop.

After introductory workshops by Heerko on electronics, mesh networks and microcontrollers, the participants were busy around the hot air soldering stations, collecting recycled electronics from discarded equipment, using a multimeter to check for conductive materials. Part of the group decided to flip the microchip around and solder it down to the tile with its legs bent around its body. It was also decided that another date would be found for a re-run of the workshop.

At the end of the day we gathered to share experiences and collect the impressions and emotions that followed us during the two days while we connected with nature, material, ancestry, labour and digital technology.

Reading materials that were mentioned during the bonfire discussion:

Donna Haraway - Staying with the Trouble

Text from Ailton Krenak

Richard Sennett - The Craftsman

Tyson Yunkaporta - Sand Talk

Harriet Rose Morley - Waste Not, Want Not

Workshop 1 Amsterdam

Workshop timeline 4 June 11.00 - 15.00

Team roles 4 June

Material list for 4 June

Workshop 2 Amsterdam

Schedule 8 June 13:00 - 17:00: TO BE DISCUSSED!!!

Team roles 8 June

Material list for 8 June

Documentation

Audio recording