7D Hardware Project

Due Wednesday Feb 12/Thursday Feb 13

Select one of the project assignments below.
Document the project on a webpage. Link to the page from your home page. Be creative, see the assignment as a starting point and as a riddle to solve. In the project documentation mention what project idea you where working from.

1. Kinetic/Robotic Artwork

Make an artwork by using hobby motors and/or "found" moving electronic (battery operated) objects such as toys, fans etc and attach them to each other and to various materials. (Hobby motors will be provided in section, For "found" moving objects look in thrift stores). A more advanced option is to use the microcontroller Arduino (a special workshop will be offered.) The way you attach them to each other should generate an interesting movement when turned on. Think about how gravity, friction and other natural laws help produce movement. The story/thought/emotion should primarily be told through movement (through the visuals and sounds the movement produce). Simple patterns of movements can be interpreted as expressions of emotions and intention.

Related texts:

• Eduardo Kac "The Origin and Development of Robotic Art" (Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 2001) **
• Erkki Huhtamo and Machiko Kusahara "Robo Renga Or a Tele-Discussion about Art and Robotics" (2002) **
• Valentino Braitenberg Vehicles: experiments in Synthetic psychology (A Bradford Book, 1986) *
• Gustav Metzger "Auto Destructive Art Manifesto" (1961) *

2. Drawing Robot

Make a "robot" that draws. You can repurpose electronics that have movement (toys, fans) our use hobby motors. A more advanced option is to use the microcontroller Arduino (a special workshop will be offered.)

Related texts:

• Eduardo Kac "The Origin and Development of Robotic Art" (Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 2001) **
• Erkki Huhtamo and Machiko Kusahara "Robo Renga Or a Tele-Discussion about Art and Robotics" (2002) **
• Valentino Braitenberg Vehicles: experiments in Synthetic psychology (A Bradford Book, 1986) *
• Gustav Metzger "Auto Destructive Art Manifesto" (1961) *

3. Cyborg

Make a wearable object that turns the person wearing it into a "cyborg". The object should change your experience of reality and/or your body in a poetic and or critical way. Document you/someone wearing the object.

You don't have to limit yourself to the typical image we have of the Darth Vader type "Cyborg."

Related texts:

• Eduardo Kac "The Origin and Development of Robotic Art" (Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 2001) **
• Erkki Huhtamo and Machiko Kusahara "Robo Renga Or a Tele-Discussion about Art and Robotics" (2002) **
• Donna Haraway, excerpts from "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century," (excerpt from Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, Routledge, 1985)

4. Devices

4 b. Design a Device

Design a device that is intended to be mass-produced and commercially available in places other than art museums. The device should do one or more of the following:

A, Add a layer of fiction to an everyday activity.
B, Perform a function that is not currently performed by any existing device and you don't believe will ever be performed by any other device in the future. (I.e. an obscure function that maybe solves a problem that is very personal to you, and that you don't imagine anyone else having.)

Make a model of the device in a suitable material: modeling clay/wood/paper/foam blocks (check a hobby store for ideas on model materials). In the documentation, describe in what type of store your product would be sold, i.e how it would be contextualized. (A more advanced option is to make a functional device using Arduino)

Related texts:

• Machiko Kusahara "Device Art: A New Form of Media Art from a Japanese Perspective" (Intelligent Agent vol. 6 no. 2, 2006) *
• Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby (excerpts from Design Noir: The Secret Life of Electronic Objects, Birkhaeuser, 2001) *

4 a. Modify a Device

Modify an existing appliance/device. It could be anything from a toaster or vacuum cleaner to a cell phone. The modification should do one or more of the following:

A, Add a layer of fiction to the device.
B, Expand the functionality of the device in ways that are poetic/political/critical etc.
C, Turn the device into a new device that perform a function that is not currently performed by any existing device and you don't believe will ever be performed by any other device in the future. (I.e. an obscure function that maybe solves a problem that is very personal to you, and that you don't imagine anyone else having.)
D, Contradict the normal functionality of the device in a funny/smart/poetic way.
Remember, it is not about merely decorating the device.

The object does not need to actually function but it should seem/look like it is functioning.

Related texts:

• Machiko Kusahara "Device Art: A New Form of Media Art from a Japanese Perspective" (Intelligent Agent vol. 6 no. 2, 2006) *
• Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby (excerpts from Design Noir: The Secret Life of Electronic Objects, Birkhaeuser, 2001) *

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Links

instructables.com
Make Magazine
dorkbot - people doing strange things with electricity
http://artbots.org
circuit bending, bent festival

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