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Notes_wp2

Schedule Earthbound Hardware

Internal work session 2: Unpacking the world of computer chips

Notes: Talk by Martijn

NXP: manufacturer for semi conductors / computer chips / appraoched marttijn because they have an archive and didnt know what to do with it.

massive manufacturing in nijmegen,

first you had philips and then they sold the company and it became nxp

previous employers started collecting and preserving things

interesting that an abstract technology like computer chip, is made by peo0le, social aspects of that

we were going to visit the archive, unfortunately had to move

the previous building is now used for dutch army to do exercises for urban warfare

martijn brought some artefacts

technical drawings, books, machines, applications, (telefones, radios…) diverse archive

wafer: through litography, how computer chips are being edged

rudamentary process: you make a drawing, you make a mask (glass?) from the drawing

optical chemical process

its like a photogram

silicium bar

computer chips are made from sand, ‘purity’ of sand is important

refining high purity quartz / semi conductor chips, fiber optics / north carolina

mine is still active

martijn went to several mines in the world / norway, chile (lithium)

high precision always starts with very dirty process (environmentally, corruption)

water is needed to separate different materials from each other

the hyper hyigenic of our devices starts always with a dirty process

initially quite crude production circumstances, not refined, more like a factory

factory was not safe, air was not purified, people didnt clean themselves,

through the decades the processes became more and more precise

film in the archive “behaviour in the clean room”

silicion melts, then you put a cristal into amoulded silicion.. the silicium sticks to the crystal

it becomes round because of the atomic structure

surface of the waver needs to be as flat as possible, the silicium has the right atomic structure for that

sand needs to be as pure as possible, no metal

the crystal is also made from sand

silicium sausage cut with a diamond cutter

hand drawn technical drawings of computer chips / starting large (2 x 6meters)

today the drawings are computerized

now they are restoring and preserving the technical drawings

how come, how computers are made, is not taught in school? demysitfication is important

kilo girls / article ?

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/10/computing-power-used-to-be-measured-in-kilo-girls/280633/

230.000 employers in NL around the time

huge influence on NL

“nette meisjes” very catholic region, (precision, and properness)

if you were from a lpower class, philips was paying for your education

if you didnt want to go to the army, you could go to work for philips

all manual labor was done by women

engineering vs manual labor distrimination

[ watching film: “how to behave in the clean room ]

Real Girls’ Work - August 7, 2024

By Lua Vollaard

https://superkilogirls.com/post/real-girls-work

https://superkilogirls.com/

https://stichtinglink.nl/the-archive

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpORXX8fzi0

Ismael had a question on the use of ceramics in computers

Ceramics used in computation for electronics, as isolation materials

Karl Marx asked money from senior Philips to write Das Kapital and fund his writing time/travels

The letter in which he did this is documented as well as a subsequent mail to Engels in which he informs him that he received the money

Initially the silicium might have been sourced from the river Maas but it’s doubted by many because of the impurities

Internal work session 1: Connecting otherwise

Internal work session 2: Unpacking the world of computer chips

Internal work session 3: An eco-feminist and decolonial approach to hardware

Internal work session 4: Speculative methodologies for earthbound hardware

Internal work session 5: Preparing the Earthbound Hardware Workshops

Resources to share

HARDWARE AND ECO-FEMINIST ART Hacking and Artistic Practices Towards Ethical Technology

Patrícia J. Reis Stefanie Wuschitz

(download PDF for free)

https://www.transcript-verlag.de/978-3-8376-7862-8/hardware-and-eco-feminist-art/?c=310000017

Summary of the chip-making process: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/challakcr_from-sand-to-silicon-the-5-stage-journey-activity-7391771568693186560-Mf_x/

https://download.intel.com/newsroom/kits/chipmaking/pdfs/Sand-to-Silicon_32nm-Version.pdf

Decapping process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mT1FStxAVz4

Cyborg Manifesto - Donna Haraway: http://pdf-objects.com/files/Meerdo-HarawayCyborgManifesto.pdf

Bio’s

Ismal Muntaha is a multidisciplinary artist who lives and works together with the collective Jatiwangi art Factory (JaF). In 2009, together with Sunday Screen, they initiated the Village Video Festival, an annual residency-based video festival in Jatiwangi. In 2017, he formed the Land Study Agency (BKP). A temporary institution that focuses on the study of land and all cultural landscapes contained in it, through various artistic projects. He recently completed a Master in Development Studies at Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB). Ismal has joined the master’s programme Planetary Poetics at the Sandberg Institute as a fellow.

Heerko van der Kooij is an interaction artist & designer living and working in Amsterdam, NL. His work ranges from hacking small electronic artobjects to webdevelopment to teaching.

Amalie ‘Sveske’ Ourø (DK, she/her)

Is a multidisciplinary artist based in the Netherlands

Her work, mostly performative and site-specific, can best be described as a form of art-anthropology. Through installations, performance and poetry, Sveske interacts with the audience through acts of play and subversion, inviting people to think critically about diverse societal urgencies through the lens of ecology. Sveske graduated from the Image and Language department at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie with honours from participating in the Art and Research program. Amalie has exhibited in The Netherlands and abroad at Hunt Kastner Gallery, (Prague), MeetFactory, (Prague), Hotel Maria Kapel (Hoorn), Ron Mandos Gallery (Amsterdam), De Tweede Kamer (Den Haag), The Long Now (San Francisco), Arti et Amicitiae (Amsterdam), HYB4 Gallery (Prague) and the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam).

Together with Sophie Dandanell, Sveske is one of the main organizers, stewards and founders of the art - and garden-project ‘The Garden Department’ as part of Ugent Ecology, Gerrit Rietveld Academie & Sandberg Instituut, Amsterdam.

Sophie Refsgaard

Sophie Dandanell (she/they) is an artist and educator based in the Netherlands. Their work explores ecological practices, material processes, and collective learning. She holds a bachelor from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie’s TXT department (2024) and is currently pursuing their master’s degree at the Dutch Art Institute (2026). At the moment, she is engaged with natural dyeing, soil, and garden-based research as ways to connect everyday encounters with shared knowledge.

She is currently affiliated with the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, where she co-organizes, together with Amalie Sveske Ourø, a para-educational platform called The Garden Department, which aims to integrate regenerative practices into art and design education. Moreover, she has presented performances and collaborative projects across the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and Cyprus, including at Vleeshal, SPEL, Galleri 54, and Vrij Paleis. Her writing and interviews have been published in PAGES/LEAVES, An Ode to Walking, and she has contributed to conversations on regenerative arts education for institutions such as RISD (USA) and Fontys Academy of Arts (NL).

Benedetta Pompili

Martijn van Boven

Anja Groten (DE) is a designer and researcher based in Amsterdam. Anja’s work revolves around the cross-section of digital and physical media, design and art education and the involvement in different interdisciplinary collectives such as Hackers & Designers and the Feminist Search Tools. Since 2019 Anja heads the Design Master program of the Sandberg Instituut Amsterdam, Master of the Rietveld Academie. In 2022 Anja completed a PhD about the relationship of design and collectivity at PhDArts, Academy of Creative and Performing Arts, Leiden University.

Márk Redele is project coordinator at Sandberg Research where they contribute to the development and operation of postgraduate research activities in the academy. They studied architecture in their origin country, Hungary, and received a master’s degree from Studio for Immediate Spaces in 2016. Since then, they have been a practicing artist pursuing self-initiated and commission-based works with a strong emphasis on material discovery. In their practice materials become the protagonists of stories personal and public, factual and fictive. These stories interrogate the subversive potential of simple material qualities such as porosity, softness and fluidity as well as the possibility of kinship, love and reconciliation in vibrant matter, under repressive conditions.

Dorine van Meel is a Dutch artist based in Brussels whose work spans moving image installations, performances, and publications. Her practice addresses various socio-political questions, using poetic language to expose current power structures while also exploring modes of resistance. She has exhibited at international venues including the South London Gallery, KW Institute in Berlin, Nottingham Contemporary, Transmediale, the 10th Berlin Biennale, and Extra City. Her collective projects reflect a commitment to feminist and self-organised methodologies, and include The Southern Summer School (BAK, Utrecht), Gentle Dust (Jupiter Woods & Berlin Biennale), and In the Eye of the Storm (rile, Brussels). From 2023 to 2025, she directed Planetary Poetics*, a master’s program at the Sandberg Institute focused on the ecological crisis and the ways cultural practitioners can engage with, respond to, and intervene in it. She currently teaches at the Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, where she is also researcher at Urgent Ecologies.