Looking back, four things stand out to me as insights that I’d never before seen this clearly:
::: I’m following most of the time
::: Materials contain the stories we use them to tell – and we think the stories are ours!
::: I’m not as skilled as I thought at smoothly transitioning between the abstract and the tangible
::: My idea of “getting lost with the materials” is not about engaging in an extreme material-lead adventure as much as it is departing from social frameworks of value
: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :

that the more dense the material the more power it took to heat and the longer it took to cool down again. +//Every time I make a decision, I’m revealing underlying motivations, intuitions, expectations that can be uncovered if I only take the time to reflect. —————- Reduced my selection back to 3-4 items to help myself focus on some concrete experiments.
++//There is a gap between thinking-about-making and making. It requires energy to make the jump. Energy in the form of courage, hope, stamina. //How to make the jump when the energy is not there? >>>>>>>>>>>>> Going through familiar motions with the most obvious of opportunities. Mixing the pigment with acrylic paint, textile paint…… painting it on fabrics, papers, seashells, pine needles, transistors…. >>>>>>>>>>>>> Hooking up the ends of a 20cm piece of steel thread to a 9V battery and using it to heat the what I had prepared. Swiping it across my samples and observing them change colour. +++//By simply doing something with the materials I had set myself up for discovering something interesting [origin of word interesting: from inter- ‘between’ + esse ‘be’ – to be between] that could then lead me further in. |<<>>|<<>>|<<<“Submerge myself in the process” (quote from letter, 1/3/2019)>>>|———— Thin, porous fabrics coated in the thermochromic mixm, held up to my noise/mouth, breathing out causes heat to spread, breathing in sucks cold air though the material. ++++//This interplay of bodily heat and electronic heat drew me in…. ——————————- Once submerged in the process, it was easy to keep meandering…. one idea leads to the next to the next… until I had lost track of what the point was. It was here that i made some of my most surprising and motivating discoveries >>>>>> Continuing to mix the pigment with vaseline, nail varnish, water…… and finally wax. I never would have thought that the pigment would mix so well with wax! And that I would return to my childhood enthusiasm for poking my fingers into melting candles, dripping it on snow and making thermochromic candles. I used snow to make moulds, bringing in the outdoors, seasonal materials, adding lines of thread for composite flexibility and surface coverage…. +++++// Experiments in creating surface heating with carbon paint were not successful. ——————— ((((Wanting to be submerged, lost, aimless…. but also needing to feel comfortable in this state. grappling for what I had experience with.)))) +++++++//What I found most intriguing was the interplay between the electrically controllable heating and the bodily (uncontrollable) heating and cooling caused by breathing as well as the heat from regular body temperature. I wanted to achieve a setup that would allow for these two different sources of heat to meet through the material actuation in order to reveal something that would otherwise not occur. ———–>>>>>>>>_______I am able to electrically change the colour of the thermochromic wax mix by embedding lines of steel thread (10-20 Ohm and can withstand high temp) in the wax, crimping their ends to copper threads, powering them from a 3.7V LiPo battery. Controlling the heating via a MOSFET triggered by a microcontroller. Controlling the microcontroller with a sensor. Controlling the sensor with my body heat._______<<<<<<<<———- ::: Combining wax with threads resulted in a rigid yet fragile structures that could hold their form while retaining some flexibility. Since the circuitry was also comprised of connected threads it should also become such an integral part of the structure. Since the wax became soft with the same heat that was intended to change the colour the shape could shift, and I would love to to collapse. ::: Pressing my face into the fold snow and then dripping molten thermochromic beeswax onto the cold snow mound. I was making a mask, a object to use to tell of change and control. */>

Getting Lost and Unlearning Certainty: Material Encounters in an Electronic Craft Practice
by David Cole and Hannah Perner-Wilson, published in the Critical Maker Reader
Download PDF >> https://networkcultures.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/CriticalMakersReader.pdf
Free copy >> https://form.jotformeu.com/93243662209356

Links:

Flickr set: https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/albums/72157690651821403
YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/user/Plusea
>> http://networkcultures.org/blog/2018/10/31/call-for-contributions-the-critical-makers-reader/

Making Discussion comes from a desire to be able to use my hands to manipulate matter in order to engage in discussions. Not discussion about the form and function of what is being created, but philosophical, political discussions about abstract topics. In particular I was interested in real-time discussions/conversations that normally take place in spoken language, in shared physical space.

To create an opportunity to experiment with this format, I decided to try and design a kind of work outfit for the maker discussor. A shoulder bag intended to be worn as a regular bag, with pouches for foraging, hunting and gathering materials throughout the day. Similarly to how we pick up ideas, collect thoughts, take notes, this bag is a storage container for material ideas. When the maker discussor enters into a discussion, the bag can be transformed into a tool-apron, a work uniform, a discussion costume. The pouches containing the foraged materials are easily accessible and the rest of the apron contains a selection of tools that can be used for working these materials, manipulating them and producing discussion.

For (no)action(no)space I produced five of these uniforms to allow a group of people to hunt and gather material for ideas and then come together to make discussion.
In the nans space at Schloss Solitude people brought in materials to contribute to the discussion and we also collected materials from outside the Schloss. The Making Discussion was lead by a presentation/narrative, which provided content for the discussion, but also tried to lead the discussion into a making trance. Listening to the talk, handling the materials, concentrating on both making and understanding created the experience. The objects in the end didn’t really get to talk, and it was not clear to me if or how they should have a voice. This discussion was more about shared experience. I want to try it again.

(no)action(no)space

“Siting Around the Same ›Fire‹ in the Digital Age”
>> https://schloss-post.com/siting-around-fire-digital-age/

These are some of the questions that came up for me while planning, making and executing this project:
Can we make with materials as fast as our minds can think? If we have to slow the speed of discussion down to a “makeable” rate, does this change the nature of the discussion? Can we mix makers and talkers in discussion?
Materials are not as abstract, as language. How much influence does the material impose on the conversation?

Sunday December 11th 11-14:00 at (no)action(no)space in Schloss Solitude

Participants are invited to make discussion by building structures from a select palette of materials and tools. The topic for discussion will be introduced in the form of a lecture. The fact that the materials selected for this task reference values that resulted from Bruno Latour’s investigation into our modes of existence, might or might not be important. The tools will be selected for their ability to manipulate and join these materials in a variety of ways and could be unequally distributed among the participants. The discussion will last slightly longer than the lecture, and will end with tea and sweets. Come hungry.

Project page >> http://noactionnospace.org/
Flickr set >> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/albums/72157675729952331

Poster:

Flickr set >> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/sets/72157675729952331

Making-of: Making Discussion

The following entries are marked by date and trace the development of this project. Trying to collect sources of inspiration, communication and events that took place as this project took shape.

7/12/2016

Second Prototype – „let’s stay Mondrian inspired“

Searching the web for constructivist aprons, I come across the collection of Eldina Begic:
multi-pocket-apron >> http://shop.comradettes.com/product/multi-pocket-apron
manifesto >> http://www.comradettes.com/manifesto
>> http://designobserver.com/article.php?id=28348

6/12/2016

First Prototype

The lower part of the bag/apron contains pouches for gathering/gleaning materials as ideas, inspirations, input for discussing. The upper part of the tool apron contains the tools for discussing with.

Laura: „let’s stay Mondrian inspired“, “the white ground is crucial”…

This reminds me of my attempt (and failure) at making the PIFpack inspired by a similar order of lines and colored surfaces…

Constructivist inspired…

But also because order creates a freedom. Andrea Zittel’s organized, optimized, personal spaces and uniforms – where structure on the outside provides for freedom within.

Digital Publication

Notes from the meeting about the digital? publication to accompany (no)action(no)space…

6/12/2016

(foraged)materials(select)tools

instead of focusing on the selection of materials, i’m now more curating the selection of tools/processes for working with materials/matter.

The selection of materials&tools for the discussion toolkit is becoming more and more an e-textile/kit-of-no-parts toolkit. Through the combination of foraged materials with electrical circuit elements, it somehow proposes to explore making electronic circuits. Or maybe just circuits.

JB: I use this word (manifestation / erscheinung != representation / darstellung) with phenomenology in mind, especially embodiment* & collective embodied cognition/thinking
>> http://www.iep.utm.edu/husspemb/

“motility – make freely and responsively”

Making, the Integrated Circuit:

Gramophone and movies were merely the mechanization of speech and gesture. But the radio and TV were not just the electronification of speech and gesture but the electronification of the entire range of human personal expressiveness. With electronification the flow is taken out of the wire and into the vacuum tube circuit, which confers freedom and flexibility such as are in metaphor and in words themselves.” 1955
Edited by Eric McLuhan & Frank Zingrone “Essential McLuhan” Routledge 1997 ISBN 0-415-16245-9 page 273.

“the wheel
is an extension of the foot
the book
is an extension of the eye
clothing, an extension of the skin,
electric circuitry,
an extension of
the
central
nervous
system”
The Medium is The Massage, Marshall McLuhan p 31-40

Once the environment is conceived as mediated, it ceases to be a passive concept and becomes an active one, as Janine Marchessault has pointed out: “Nature in the new cosmic age of the integrated circuit is profoundly technological and technology is natural”
McLuhan in Space: A Cultural Geography by Richard Cavell

For Virilio, when information becomes the “last dimension of space-time-matter”, and computer-generated virtuality is possible, the “far horizon” (beyond which the human eye could not see) becomes a “trans-apparent horizon” and the “mental image of far distances” yields to “instrumental imagery of a computer that can generate a virtual otherworld, thanks to the computing speed of its integrated circuits” (Virilio 1995:143). With increases in processing power and graphic frame rates, and the advent of portable, personal virtual-environment systems, Virilio observes a change in the speed of history: from long-term to short-tern to “real-term”.
Transforming McLuhan: Cultural, Critical, and Postmodern Perspectives by Paul Grossweiler

Feminists must, she proclaims, unite behind “an ironic dream of a common language for women in the integrated circuit.”
“A Cyborg Manifesto” by Donna Haraway

6/12/2016

Definitions

Definitions taken from Wikipedia and Google:

Intercession

Intercession is the action of intervening on behalf of another.
Synonyms: mediation, intermediation, arbitration, conciliation, negotiation; intervention, involvement; pleading, petition, entreaty, agency; diplomacy

Intercession or intercessory prayer is the act of praying to a deity on behalf of others. In Western Christianity, intercession forms a distinct form of prayer, alongside Adoration, Confession and Thanksgiving.

Transistor

A transistor is a semiconductor device used to amplify or switch electronic signals and electrical power.

Semiconductor

Semiconductor devices can display a range of useful properties such as passing current more easily in one direction than the other, showing variable resistance, and sensitivity to light or heat. Semiconductors can be used for amplification, switching, and energy conversion.

Energy Conversion

Energy transformation or energy conversion is the process of changing one form of energy to another form of energy. In physics, the term energy describes the capacity to produce certain changes within any system, without regard to limitations in transformation imposed.

Relay

A relay is an electrically operated switch. Relays are used where it is necessary to control a circuit by a separate low-power signal, or where several circuits must be controlled by one signal. The first relays were used in long distance telegraph circuits as amplifiers: they repeated the signal coming in from one circuit and re-transmitted it on another circuit. Relays were used extensively in telephone exchanges and early computers to perform logical operations.

4/12/2016

Hunted and Gathered

Materials & Tools spreadsheet >> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VRTYw3eqCRDKbbAfFCZhn_m_OTY8PnszMVn3z0qdlls/edit?usp=sharing

The materials can be hunted and gathered from anywhere at any time. While food shopping in the supermarket you could forage for items that inspire you to build. When visiting a friend, ask them to give you something to include in your materials library. On your walks, gather whatever sparks interest, and go hunting for what you want to have.

JB: Varda’s The Gleaners and I is notable in another regard, as well. In a film about gleaning, Varda recognizes that she is a gleaner. “I’m not poor, I have enough to eat,” says Varda, but she points to “another kind of gleaning, which is artistic gleaning. You pick ideas, you pick images, you pick emotions from other people, and then you make it into a film.”
>> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gleaners_and_I

Foraging pouch

Apron for tools
>> http://vintagecraftsandmore.com/tag/sew-apron/

Fire Hose shop apron
>> http://www.duluthtrading.com/store/product/shop-apron-improved-fire-hose-bib-apron-85021.aspx

Printed apron
>> http://www.stephaniewilkinson.co.uk/swapron.htm

Hunt & Gather Apron Bag by Natalie Purschwitz
>> http://canadiandesignresource.ca/fashiontextiles/apron-bag/

Thing to Thing Project >> http://canadiandesignresource.ca/exhibitions/thing-to-thing-project/

Unisex hairdresser belt tool bag / Hairdresser holster/ Hair stylist apron / Hairdresser gift
>> https://www.etsy.com/listing/128862205/unisex-hairdresser-
belt-tool-bag

Alibaba

Snap Bag
>> http://wuitoki.altervista.org/portfolio/snap-bag/

Apron Bag
>> http://wuitoki.altervista.org/portfolio/the-apron-bag/

Design-A-Bag Competition 2013 >> http://www.arsarpel.com/future-designers-awards/

AMUDO
A bag that can transform from a handbag to a backpack or sling bag.
>> http://www.coroflot.com/lkong/Amudo-State-changing-Bag

Apron Tool Bag
>> http://www.red-dot.sg/de/online-exhibition/concept/?code=829&y=2013&c=12&a=2?code=829&y=2013&c=12&a=2
This tool storage bag unzips into a work apron in which tools can be carried for convenient access during repair work.

1923 Flapper Era Aprons Dust Caps Sewing Reference Book DIY Prohibition Clothing

Skirt Aprons

Gathering apron
>> https://www.vermontapron.com/garden-aprons

Berry picking apron pattern
>> http://sewinghappyplace.blogspot.de/2011/09/berry-picking-apron-tutorial-from-1944.html

Kneeling apron pattern
>> http://sewinghappyplace.blogspot.de/2011/09/be-kind-to-your-knees-kneeling.html

Harvesting bags

2/12/2016

An Inquiry into Tastes

As part of our third White Dinner party, I tried an experiment to get myself more familiar with the 15 modes of existence, and to discuss the idea the inquiry into these modes and their crossings.

I bought a selection of foods from Lidl, making the selection based on the idea of creating sweets. But as soon as we started tasting them in combination it became apparent that it was not going to be about building/constructing sweets, but about describing taste/texture combinations.

Each food was put into a white paper box with the mode description glued to the bottom.

Adding cooked pasta to help make combinations. Not sure this really went anywhere.

3/12/2016

Selecting Materials and Tools

Originally I imagined the selection of materials and tools for the tool kit it to have nothing to do with e-textiles, but now I find myself coming back to these materials because they so nicely allow for a cohort of raw(ish) fibers co-existing with man-made power structures.

Materials

The materials should be abundant resources, although maybe some materials could have scarcity as a property? Is it scarce in the sense of hard to get, or scarce in the sense of unsustainable? And then by abundant do I mean easy to find, or sustainable? The selection of materials should pay attention to sustainability and communicate this property of the materials as part of the kit.
The combination of materials should allow for quick and accessible making of structures/artifacts/mechanisms/circuits so that one can quickly “sketch” an idea. Quickly build an idea. A prototype. But the materials should also provide enough possibilities for endless exploration/expression. Should these materials not be all the materials? Why have a selection?

The selection of materials is made while foraging. What you find, determines what you discuss.

Notes:
– thread/sewing/tension/structures/models/sculptures…
– common/everyday/natural/materials…

Tools

Similarly can the toolkit contain any tool you want? Is the toolkit fixed? Maybe not to the exact tool, but certain tool properties which could be as broad as: additive, subtractive, manipulative…? No, the tool-kit should remain flexible, expanding to the abilities of the maker/wearer. The uniform provides a platform for making discussion, not the selection of materials and tools to discuss with, these are the choice of the maker.

2/12/2016

A Lecture on Intercessors

JB will give his lecture on intercessors – people, artefacts & machines that help us access to otherwise separated plans/dimensions.

Previously his talk titled “Morphogenesis Of The Outside” was followed by “a hands-on workshop with philosophers, dancers and artists discussing about self-reference, ontological bootstrap and high-order feedback while tinkering with electronic textile musical machines.”

Morphogenesis Of The Outside >> https://github.com/jeanbaptiste/paf/blob/master/summer2015/talk/moto.pdf
Oscillator / Resonance / Feedback Circuit Workshop >> https://github.com/jeanbaptiste/paf/blob/master/summer2015/workshop/README.md

He is also thinking about:
“material thinking” (pensée matérielle) which explores embodiment and hands-on practices as a mode of intellectual investigation.
“material ways of thinking” are a *very rich complement* to more abstract and rhetoric based argumentative settings.

11/2016

A first draft of the project description…

I find myself in the blurry midst of these two topics:
– documenting process in real-time
– physical making as a means of communication/discussion

And yesterday came to this rather simplistic proposition:
Latour defines 15 modes of existence (I am just at the beginning of understanding their definitions and crossings). Can these modes be translated into a selection of materials and accompanied by a set of tools, to provide a toolkit for further inquiry?

JB’s response: “in the same vein that a “reading group” triggers a discussion, a “making group” could do the same. but what do we make? … a miniature model / a mock-up / a demo”

A second draft…

I propose a “making discussion”. Making involves materials and tools, so I will put together a set of materials and tools. One representative material for each defined mode of existence. These materials should be abundant resources – drinking straws, napkins, leaves, string, hair, paperclips, paper, bottle tops, elastic bands, pins, gum, coins, magnets…
Tools would be chosen for the ability to modify and work these materials into combined structures.
I imagine a uniform or costume for the “inquirer into our modes of existence”. The uniform contains the tools (similar to a tool belt), and provides space for collecting and organizing the materials. And if not a uniform, then a portable tool-kit. I will make multiples of this uniform/tool-kit and participants will each wear/use one during the making discussion.

How to start a “making discussion”? Can the materials inform the content of the discussion? We could build structures that house our existence. Miniature world models. Homes. Can we talk while we make? Contradictions are a natural starting points for discussion.

Who will participate in the making discussion? Skilled makers, manipulators of material. Is there an audience?

Documentation? Real-time photo documentation via wifi directly from the camera. A camera should be integrated into each uniform – too much for this time. Maybe a central camera mounted above. A designated photo reporter?

Links and quotes:

JB’s slidedeck as a proposal to create a research lab in an art school context:
>> http://web.media.mit.edu/~labrune/talks/fablab-perspectives-l.pdf

Froebel’s Gifts:
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Froebel_gifts

Frei Otto’s “Thinking by Modeling” exhibition at ZKM
>> http://zkm.de/en/event/2016/11/frei-otto-thinking-by-modeling

“Leibniz was interested in facilitations of thought processes by technical means and offered the procedure enabling inventors to achieve this objective: Formalisation enables the mechanisation of calculation.”
(http://dreher.netzliteratur.net/4_Medienkunst_Kybernetike.html)

“a transport without transformation”
(http://www.bruno-latour.fr/node/328)

11/2016

Starting to read Donna Haraway’s “Staying with the Trouble”.

Donna Haraway, “Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Chthulucene: Staying with the Trouble”, 5/9/14 from AURA on Vimeo.

10/2016

I forget why, but in looking for information about the book “Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schzophrenia”, I came across these drawings by Marc Ngui. He writes they are methodical interpretations of the first two chapters of the book. These are visualizations of theories and concepts using markers and paper. How could something like it be done in three-dimensional, material form?

>> http://www.bumblenut.com/drawing/art/plateaus/

A while later I see that Haus der Kulturen der Welt is organizing a discussion series titled “Dictionary of Now”. They use an image by Nikolaus Gansterer titled “Theory Casing IV (of the Middle of the Moment)”, 2013.

Dictionary of Now >> https://www.hkw.de/en/programm/projekte/2015/woerterbuch_der_gegenwart/woerterbuch_der_gegenwart_start.php
Nikolaus Gansterer >> http://www.gansterer.org/

The original piece by Nikolaus Gansterer does not include the annotating text. I wonder if the text is the written interpretation of the content of the form. The content the form wants to express. His project pages says “Proxemics is the study of how individuals behave in space in terms of proximity-distance. It specifies the distances that people maintain from one another in different situations, thereby communicating with one another non-verbally.”

8/2016

On the Symposionista blog I discover Latour’s video “An Inquiry Into Modes Of Existence”.

For the last half year I have been attempting to read Bruno Latour’s book “We Have Never Been Modern”. Only slowly grasping the idea that after realizing we can not distinguish our time by thinking of ourselves as modern, because what we think of as modernity is not what we are, we are lacking a value system. To (re)create or begin to define our value system, we must first reset.

The video leads me to the digital platform of An Inquiry into Modes of Existence:
>> http://modesofexistence.org/

And the recent ZKM exhibition “GLOBALE: Reset Modernity!”
>> http://zkm.de/en/event/2016/04/globale-reset-modernity
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STn9DLHtoBA

And the book cover:

And to think about how I could add to this discussion through making physical artifacts. The visual representations of modes on the book cover, and the arrangement of their crossings in the triangular chart make these value entities appear tangible. If they were really tangible, what translations could be added to their discussion?

9/2016

This picture taken of an elastic band lying in a puddle on the ground, reminded me of a segmented chart. It captures both separation and overlap of objects, contents, ideas. A random shape by a specific material. Trying to create order, by just lying on the ground.

Tracing the shape and separating the segments to become entities of their own. The overlap can be assigned to part of each segment or remain a segment on it’s own.

The overlap must expand to grow beyond itself.

9/2016

An exercise in adding metadata to images…
I read about DiEM 25
>> http://nala.io/~s/_site/
>> http://diem25.org/

21/8/2016

Symposionista >> http://symposionista.tumblr.com/
Expose >> https://github.com/Jack000/Expose/issues
Symposionista + Expose >> http://nala.io/symposion/

Symposion: group of people come together and each of the person propose a talk but first they would drink, eat, and talk, it is open, no agenda only a conversation space to express thoughts, an incubator to initiate further thoughts.

POSSIBLE OUTCOME: A multi person, multi format, multi layered, multi platform ESSAY (essay means attempt, trial, infinite, polyperspective, collaboratively curated, subjective research, participant-dependant narrative)

MEETING PLACES: BodenSee, Brussels, Nantes, Athens, Stuttgart, Paris, PAF…

>> Photos

All italic text on this page was taken from the Autodesk machine shop basic use manuals, the CNC pathway handbook and the Voxel8 support documentation.

make a mistake
leave the machine
depress the “IN” button with your thumb
the tool advances into the material
the needle is capable of going through your finger
this can and does happen
do not attempt to engage others
if they refuse, accept it graciously
if in doubt, press the button
there are many ways to do moth things
knowing that ignorance can hurt you is essential to cultivating an attitude
detect contact with conductive materials – like a finger
pull the pin only if you’ve committed
the tool path can vary from the theoretically perfect path
insert pin through the locating hole in the stock
parts are not just visual aids, they are structural components
impossible to manufacture
almost anything can be machined
use your hands
NEVER hold work with your hands
foreign material on the outside
feel around the inside
initiated by the operator by pushing a button
control the tip of the tool
accommodate a wide range of materials
using the simulator is not as realistic
repeat the process until you have three or four
make sure your material is sewable
what you don’t know can hurt you

We set off on this expedition equipped with electronics and tools from the lab, prepared to build digital technology in the jungle of southern Madagascar. Two weeks later we emerged with a series of projects, a hard-drive full of documentation and lasting inspiration. We may not have found the ant at the top of the mountain, but even just getting to the summit where this ant was last seen over 40 years ago, was a totally inspiring journey. This project is documented on so many different platforms (see bellow) and in this post I wanted to try and capture a summary of it in one place.

LINKS:

Follow the expedition live: #WildHacks, @ant_explorer, @HikingHack, @openPlusea, Open Explorer journal

Read more: Dissemination Lab, Digital Naturalism, Publication by French Expedition in 1973

Videos: Andy’s YouTube, Hannah’s YouTube Playlist

Projects that resulted from the expedition:
>> Wearable Studio
>> Jungle Speakers
>> VinePro Camera Head Mount
>> Fiber-Optic Jungle Insect Traffic Taster
>> Ultra-Lightweight Tyvek Backpacking Belt

Photos:
Hannah’s Flickr

Brian’s Flickr

Andy’s Flickr

Hacking the Wild Making Sense of Nature in the Madagascar Jungle

AN INTRODUCTION

Hacking the Wild is a collaboration between Andrew Quitmeyer, Brian Fisher and Hannah Perner-Wilson. Andy and Brian meet for coffee at an entomology (study of insects) conference in Portland and talked for hours about their respective work in entomology/biodiversity and digital media/digital naturalism. Brian is one of the world’s leading ant taxonomists, he collects ants in order to chart biodiversity and uses this information to conserve habitats. Andy builds technology alongside field biologists in the jungles of Panama, organizes hiking hacks across continents and promotes Digital Naturalism as a field of practice. Brian and Andy decided to launch an experiment that would blend biology field work and the maker movement, looking at technology to rekindle our explorer spirit. Dissemination Lab was born. It was to be an experimental initiative for discovering methods of sharing biology field research using digital technology.

I heard about the Dissemination Lab project through Andy when he sent out an email requesting people to send in their ideas for this “live adventure”. Instead of submitting an idea, I asked if I could participate. In my life I enjoy nature, science and making digital technology, but I’d never heard of a better way to combine them all in one single experience. My background is in electronic textiles, I develop techniques for building technology that is soft, stretchy, wearable and experimental. My interest is in exploring the materiality and diversity of technology that lies beyond industrialized standards developed for mass production. In the context of my work, building electronic textiles in the wild made so much sense.

Before joining this expedition all I knew about the project was from what was written on the Dissemination Lab website:
“We will attempt to retrace the steps of an expedition to the highest mountain of the Anosyennes in southeast Madagascar. You can read about the 1971 French expedition here. We will be looking for this species found by Peyrieras near the summit. We need fresh material to so we can study the DNA of this strange beast.”
Something I did not know then, but know now, is that there was not only no path through the jungle to the top of this 1960m peak, but also we were not exactly sure how to get up there and whether we would make it in the time we had.

Hacking the Wild is what we now refer to as our process and experience of building tech in the wild. It is the first instance of the Dissemination Lab initiative which took place in Madagascar during February/March 2015.

Expedition Maps

Goals of the Expedition

Dissemination Lab
The Dissemination Lab goal, as listed on the site, is to connect people around the world with the:
Animals – The creatures we are studying
Ecosystems – The amazing environments we work in
Practices – The how and why of what we do

Entomology/Biodiversity
Brian lead the expedition, which was manned by five more ant specialists: Flavia, JJ, Chrislain, Claver and Fidelisy. My interpretation of the entomology (which means the study of insects) goals of this expedition is that they were looking to:
(1) Reach the summit
(2) Find the ant
(3) Collect and chart ants (and other insects) along the way
(4) Get back in time for the next expedition
(5) Publish findings and use results towards conservation of biodiversity

The Eutetramorium Parvum ant specimen that Brian and his team are looking for is described here on AntWeb.

Digital Naturalism
Andy and my goals as “Digital Naturalists” joining this expedition were to:
(1) Prepare a selection of electronics tools and materials that we are able to carry into the jungle with us
(2) Transport all our gear with us into the jungle
(3) Observe and communicate with the entomology team in the field
(4) Identify opportunities for building digital technology
(5) Set up productive work spaces in the jungle
(6) Build digital technology in the jungle
(7) Use and document what we build

THE ADVENTURE

Preparations

Andrew and I had several Skype calls and many emails in which we organized our gear. Mostly Andy shared tips with me from his previous experiences with working in Panama and running the hiking hack. This was going to be my very first trip into the Jungle and my image of the jungle was informed by national geographic photography and media equivalent to a Tarzan movie.

The following documentation of our 14 day trip to the summit and back is a blend of transcribed journal entries by Andy and myself as well as post-expedition edits and additions.

Day 1 (17.3.2015)

Hannah’s journal entry: “The expedition begins! We finally successfully pick Andy from the airport in Fort Dauphin. Rush to mechanic to have missing break parts mounted that Andy brought with him from Tana. Quickly to hotel to pack and set off for 120 km drive to Manantan. Five ferry crossing we need to make before dark. Bad luck catching ferries on our side but luck with all the road and car troubles we ran into. Which include bumping and scraping underside on bridges that crack as we cross them, pushing car out of deep sandy water, pumping oil filter day and managing not to tip over. Finally arrive long after dark and eat bread with sardines for dinner.”

Day 2 (18.3.2015)

Hannah’s journal entry: “No more car. We take three lakana (boats hollowed from single tree trunks) upstream as far as we can go. This takes about 3 hours. The river is beautiful and in the distance we catch fist glimpse of Anoysian range- where we are headed. Our destination starts to feel real and the face that we don’t know how to get there maybe even more so.
We leave the boats in Analamiar and discussions with locals begin to hire porters who will help carry all our stuff (equipment, gear, food) to our base camps (s). These discussions take time, during which we find out that somebody’s father remembers the French expedition that passed through in 1971! We get to talk to this persona and ask him if he remember the route they took and where they set up camp. He unfortunately says it was too long ago to remember. We set off on foot with about 16 porters and only make them until the next village Suavala.
In Suavala the porters stop and won’t continue, so we set up for the night and begin new discussion the possible porters from this village. These discussions last several hours, but we do come to an agreement and plan to set off at 5 am the next morning.
In Madagascar things happen early, and after lunch one cant’ really expect to get much done.

Day 3 (19.3.2015)

Hannah’s journal entry: “We set off and make a good start following a path that leads through further villages. All these villages and farmed land was not here when the French expedition passed through. In 1971 it was all still rain forest!
Crawling along burnt tree trunks, through rice fields, attacked by leeches. After only about 11 km the porters stop at a farm and we can’t persuade them to continue on the final 4 km to where the French set up their 4th camp be the river, at the base of the mountain. Thus we setup camp to stay the night on the farm. Scarcity of trees makes it hard for Andy and Hannah to find places to hang their hammock tents.
Discover a cave with bats and Andy experiments on a large snail crawling up his leg to see what colors of LED light it might have a reaction to. No noticeable reactions to any, even IR and UV.”

Day 4 (20.3.2015)

Andy’s journal entry: “We had just 3km to go to make it to base camp. It took us the entire day. Crossed burnt rice fields on slippery logs. The river was even harder. Giant boulders and stormy rapids made for magnificent videos. But a slippery wet climb. We stop only 200 meters from camp. Our target. Set up camp.
Build workspace.
Prep for 4 days of Activity
transposed by me, Erika. I’m open to other explorer’s interpretations of this leaf message. Post below if you read it differently”

Day 5 (21.3.2015)

Day 6 (22.3.2015)

Andy’s journal entry: “Another Fantastic and productive day in the camp. Felt like this had been the day we relaxed the most, looking back, we tackled all sorts of difficult problems.
First, it was sunny for the first real time. We went down to the river and managed to clear a long backlog of journal entries. Accidentally dropped an SD card into the river, but i think it was at least 50% baked up (Lucky I had done that!) We brought our 5 day old muddy clothes down to the river today and swam about this magical place. Hannah and I then jammed on design projects for the day on boulders above the rapids.

Project 2 was about how to make a sensor triggered by ants. We tried sanding down the edges of fiber optics and wrapping these around trees. Showed some success…continued
Continued… working with Brian and Hannah is fantastic. Brian is the craziest most extreme ? I met, and he still makes time for all my side activities. Hannah is always gung ho and has a sharp wit and creative mind that’s going to make most projects…….”

Day 7 (23.3.2015)

While we were at our first basecamp it became apparent how useful Google Earth was in reaching the summit. Brian used it to determine a route around the cliff-face that was in our way, and I had a strange moment in which I felt technology was really an extension of the self. It was like having built a giant periscope that allowed us an aerial view of our location – giving us a different perspective that would allow us to achieve our goal.

Day 8 (24.3.2015)

Andy’s journal entry: “Got sick maybe I shouldn’t have eaten the cold 9 day old meat. Whups. Slept a long time. Frustrating to not be able to do anything. Everyone was very nice to me. Fever broke in the night, now just ache-y.
As I am lying here, it occurred to me that many of you might not know about one of the biggest goals on this mission: The Unknown Ant on the Mountain. So, some bad ass french guys were the last people here (even the locals don’t go here) in the 1970’s. They were studying the forest and also just randomly collecting stuff. They happened to bring back an ant that no one had ever seen before! We are trying to find it! Unfortunately, it lives on the TOP of the mountain, also nobody knows how to get there!”

Since data was not cheap (6$ per MB) we limited our Internet activity to posting brief updates and 640×320 images to Twitter. To save on typing time (battery life) we emailed photos of handwritten journal entries to Erika (Thank you!) of Open Explorer who transcribed these and posted them to our live journal feed that we hosted on their site. Possibly we were not very well prepared on the social media front. For all of us this was the first time using Twitter as medium for publishing work from a remote location, and for me my first Twitter post ever. None of us had a great following, and probably we hoped that the novelty of posting live from the field would engage people and attract attention from the entomology and maker communities. We had no idea what to expect, and even now that the documentation process is still ongoing, we’re unsure of how our work is being received.

Day 9 (25.3.2015)

Andy’s journal entry: “Up to Cloud Forest Base Camp. Felt great this morning (sickness mostly gone). Saddened to leave our amazing lower base camp. As Hannah said we could have stayed at this luxurious camp we built for weeks building all sorts of things. The jungle is a ridiculously inspiring place to work. The biggest challenge is to not be overwhelmed by the possibilities.
I think Hannah and I have been tackling all these challenges excellently together. The project, (sharing research, building electronics, designing mobile labs, surveying) is already huge, but we have been helping eachother, watching out for each other, and tossing ideas around together. 
Such a luxury having her with us.
We walked, or really climbed, with backpacks straight up for 4 hours to the cloud forest camp. One porter carried a full live pig all the way up. They slaughtered and BBQ’d it up here last night. I had never seen such a thing first hand.
Only 3 days left to build and explore.”

Day 10 (26.3.2015)

The Internet, despite being such an ideal platform for dissemination, proved a tough challenge on-route and in the jungle. Establishing the connection via Satellite technology was not the hardest part. Building up motivation to switch on the device, focus on the screen, communicate with the rest of the world was harder. But is was not like we did not want to share what we were experiencing and doing, it was the mode of communication – reminiscent of a different life – that put us off. What modes of communication would be more suitable for posting from the wild? What wild communication protocols exist? Andy mentioned a technique for bouncing data off the moon. This immediately felt much more romantic and appropriate. Even texting an SMS on an old phone felt more in place than opening a laptop.

Day 11 (27.3.2015)

Andy’s journal entry: “The Summit. This basecamp up in the clouds only has 3 Days. Day 1 we had to rest and set up camp. Day 3 we had to pack and prepare. So before we even realized it, we suddenly knew that today, Day 2, would have to be our chance to summit, and find that mystery ant.
We shove as much food as we can into us at 5AM and head up into the unknown. There are parts where we are crawling up waterfalls and snaking around chasms. mostly it becomes a long enjoyable walk through a rapidly changing landscape as our guides chop a minimal path through the jungle. At no point are we ever sure our path will actually bring us to the summit, and not just a dead-end ridge. The jungle gives way to a psychedelically shifting new types of forest. Suddenly everything is spongy and teal. Then it is all burnt. Then grasslands. We see bizarre new forms of plants.
We get close in elevation but panic sets in as our guides detect HONEY. We almost lose them but brian convinces them to summit! We get to the top. It looks like the alps. So strange but maybe hannah feels as home! We hunt for that ant!”

Day 12 (28.3.2015)

Andy’s journal entry: “Final Day in Cloud Camp. Didn’t find the ant.
Looked everywhere at the summit, but no – show. Brian is anxious. After so many years, we are here, but no ant. Against his own judgement, he decides to lead a SECOND expedition up to the top to hunt for that ant once more. It’s gonna be crazy because he’ll have to pack everything in camp today as well when he gets back from the top, AND then be ready to leave at 3 AM for the long walk home.
While he is gone, Hannah and I try to finish up and document beaucoup de notre projets. I become a tiny bit frustrate because I realized that before, I kinda thought I had the excuse that the reason that some of my project electronics looked terrible was because I’m in the jungle and EVERYTHING IS HARD TO DO.
But now Hannah is here and her hands turn vines and wires into beautiful objects. She has those smart, strong hands of a real craftsperson. Meanwhile, I cobble together some fun projects with my less-honed aesthetic. I turn leaves into an electro-tongue display. And I make the worst robot ever from mushrooms and a linear actuator. It’s so stupid looking, hobbling over the floor.
(Illustration includes drawing of terrible mushroom bot and hannah’s leech disco-dancefloor).”

Day 13 (1.4.2015)

Andy’s journal entry: “The Death March. Been a bit scared of this day for a while. Brian always seemed cheerful about it, “It’s amazing! You take four days to get out here, but then you just walk the whole thing back in one day” – “also there’s no more food, so you HAVE to make it back!”
Get up at 3AM to take down camp, eat, and leave at 5AM. I shove as much bland rice into me as possible. The Chef, Berlin, also has a little sack of sugar I start eating mouthfuls of: I am camel-ing up whatever nutrients i can before our 12+ hour hike into the unknown new path back.
Walking down a mountain in the dark is super difficult. 
Also WALKING is a wrong verb. We moreso do a controlled fall for 3 hours. Make it to the 540m raincamp and barely give it enough respect. Just march through. Brian is CRAZY fast at this. Hannah and I keep getting lost, and have to look for clues. Tiny ridiculous clues in the terrain. Like disturbed patches of moss to track where everyone is. This is crazy.
When we get to deforested areas, we start to move fast, but get tired-er, hotter, and thirstier. We find guava growing along the path and hannah feeds me some which saves me and prevents the trail-crazies.
I stumble along for hours behind a woman carrying a baby and ton of vegetables to go to the market. She’s amazing. She uses our porters (one guy named “James Bond”) to carry her baby across rapids for her.
These malagasy have such smart feet. My feet feel stupid and crippled locked in their shoe-prisons.”

Day 14 (2.4.2015)

Andy’s journal entry: “Death March (Part 2). Made it! We left at 5am and walked ALL DAY. We covered what had taken us 4 days, and got through it in one crazy day. Made it at 1am, ate a meal, and passed out at 3am. A full 24 hour day.
After that crazy march, we got up at 7AM, packed up and started the long drive to Ft. Dauphin.
From our drive-in, the 100km took us 10 hours with river crossings and quick repairs. But we had more problems this time.
The battery doesn’t work AT ALL. So we had to push it starting. This seemed ok, until we realized that if the car stalled at all in the long trip of mud and rivers that we had to drive through, we’d be totally screwed.
Brian is an incredible driver. I don’t understand how the car can b SO sideways at times and not tip over. On top of the battery, other problems started happening. Weird grinding noises and things caught underneath that started sounding worse and worse.
We fixed and shoved the truck out of really hairy predicaments all day, but now, just 17 km away, on a nice flat road, the transmission goes out.
So badly destroyed that the car cannot even roll or be towed. Brian says for 15 years he has driven this beast, and this is the first time it has actually, all-the-way failed on him.
It’s 10pm on a dark, quiet road. Our flight is at 6am. Eating papaya now, figuring out what to do. :)”

THE MAP

One of our evening activities was to draw up individual maps of our trek up to the first base-camp. Then we passed our maps around and explained them to each other. I loved seeing everybody’s different drawing styles and from these hand-drawn maps I’ve compiled a map of our entire route – from Manantanina to the summit and back. Enjoy!

THE TEAM

Brian Fisher

Brian is passionate about ants. He specializes in the large-scale discovery, description, and naming of African and Malagasy ants. His inventory work in Africa and Madagascar demonstrates the feasibility and challenges of conducting global biodiversity inventories.

Andrew Quitmeyer

Andrew is a polymath adventurer interested in discovering new means of exploring and sharing the living world. As a Georgia Tech PhD student, he researches how digital media can be used in the study of animal behavior for exploration and outreach. He develops techniques and tools for expressing ideas in engaging and powerful new ways. His trans-disciplinary, multimedia works have been featured in outlets such as PBS, NPR, The Discovery Channel, Cartoon Network, Make Magazine, and Wired.

Hannah Perner-Wilson

Hannah makes things and through her work explores the world…

Flavia Esteves

Ph.D. in Entomology, and postdoctoral fellow at California Academy of Sciences, USA. Flavia has been studying ants for more than 10 years, integrating fieldwork, taxonomy, and community ecology analysis to discover and describe ant diversity and patterns of distribution, particularly in rainforest habitats. (taken from http://www.thelostmountainfilm.com/the-team/)

Rafanonezantsod Jean Jacque (JJ)

Ranaivo Chrislain

Randriananchasana Edson Claver

Bemaheva Fidelisy

Bazile Rakoto

Village elder guide from Suhavala who brought calm to crazy situations, seeing him ahead, pointing the way, meant there was somebody looking out for us.

Saodraza and Rostin

Guides and honey-hunters from Suhavala, who did re-con to find our way up the mountain. They hacked our path through the jungle to reach our second base-camp and then the summit.

Berlin

Great cook from the village of Suhavala.

The porters from the village of Suavala

The roughly 20 porters we hired in the village of Suhavala to carry our gear to our two base-camps.

THE END

The expedition ended for Andy and me the night the car broke down and we jumped in the taxi that the car mechanic arrived in. Back to hotel Mahavoky in Fort Dauphin for a few hours sleep before our flight to Tana at 6 am the next morning. We made it to the summit, but we did not find the ant. I have not fully realized that I may never go back up that mountain again. Brian’s experience got us to the summit with such efficiency. Even if I return to Madagascar, reaching that summit again would entail a whole new expedition. The paths we trod and the camps we left behind are still there now, but who knows what will stay. Will our camps become farms? The jungle turned to rice fields? It appears this is what happened to some of the French camp sites after their expedition passed through in 1971. One of the farms we passed on our second day, where we were served manioc, bread (a spinach like leaf vegetable) and given peanuts, could have been their 1st camp.
“Finding the ant” remains in the back of my head as a placeholder for some sort of distant goal. Somewhere to head for, while concentrating on all that happens along the way. This feeling is definitely a remnant from my overall experience during this expedition.

Why did we struggle to pack a whole studio full of supplies and work surfaces into an amount we could reasonably carry on our back? Then carry it out into the jungle to build tech in the wild?

– Site-specificity: The environment as a resource and source of inspiration. The jungle is an amazing setting for building electronics. Surrounded by nature so dense that sunlight barely hits the ground and a volume level of insects higher than a busy intersection. One of the most inspiring discoveries we made, once we set up our JungleLab at the first base-camp, was that the plants and animals growing and living around us were extremely useful building materials.

– Making as a means of exploring: Putting the act of making into the foreground as a means of experiencing a new environment. Just like using a magnifying glass to see things up close, or helicopter to get to an otherwise unreachable plateau, the act of making can be seen as a tool for discovery.

– Lifestyle: Moving through the world while practicing a trade. In their literature naturalists are frequently explicit about their choice of vocation coming in part from a love of being outdoors and spending time in nature. Why can’t engineers want to build stuff outdoors too? In digital media, I’ve never heard anybody be enthusiastic about the typical lifestyle of a programmer who likely spends much of the day sitting indoors, in front of a keyboard and screen. I believe that people building and working with digital technologies enjoy the time they spend with the technologies they use, but the environments these technologies are bound to tend to be painfully uninspiring. An important part of working in the wild, is being (living, breathing, sleeping) in the wild. 

After the expedition ended, I felt the longer list of goals I mentioned above could be neatly summarized into three things beginning with B: (1) be there (and keep up), (2) build there
, (3) bring stuff back.

The “being there” part was not something I anticipated listing as a goal, that simply being in a new environment would be so incredibly challenging and inspiring. As Andy so nicely put it in two of his journal entries transcribed bellow:

“I’m in the jungle and EVERYTHING IS HARD TO DO” (Final Day in Cloud Camp)

“The jungle is a ridiculously inspiring place to work” (02-25-2015, Up to Cloud Forest Base Camp)

The “building there” part also came more laden with insight than I’d imagined. Making things is simply such a fitting way to explore a new environment. As a process it works similar to a lens through which you can look at things and see them differently. For example I was looking for a good material to make a speaker membrane from – all of a sudden everything I look at becomes a potential material for moving air. I touch, handle and look for things that have ideal properties for amplifying vibrating and moving air. One leaf in particular (still trying to find what plant it was from >> reddit.com/r/whatsthisplant/comments/303raf/anyideawhatplantthisleafisfromfound_in/) worked especially well as a coiled membrane and resonant body.

The “bringing stuff back” part entailed what I had expected it would, that we would build stuff and document it to share with the Internet. But besides project documentation we brought back so much more we want to share. If only for entertainment sake, we definitely want to convey the adventurous aspects of the expedition. What we learned by setting up our JungleLab, then realizing we had enough gear with us to easily spend some weeks camped out and making stuff, is high on our list of things to document and publish. All the great exchanges between Andy and myself about why we do what we do… All these things we’ve brought back, we are currently digesting and slowly sharing in different ways (see bellow).

A Kit-of-No-Parts is documented in different formats:
>> Download Thesis
>> Visit Website
>> A Wall of Examples (see bellow)
>> A Collection of Samples (see bellow)
>> Download Photobook
>> Order Photobook
>> Download Poster
>> Visit Flickr Photo Set

Close-ups:

Ideas:

Thesis

Thesis >> http://www.plusea.at/downloads/print/KoNP-thesis_sm.pdf

Website

The Kit-of-No-Parts website is aimed at demonstrating the results of this approach. By showing examples of electronic circuitry and components built from a diverse range of craft materials and techniques, I hope to illustrate the material diversity and unique results that it enables. By posting detailed information how these examples were made, I hope to provide relevant resources as well as to encourage others to explore new ways of building electronics.

Website >> http://konp.plusea.at/

Wall of Examples

The following physical examples can be displayed as wall hung panels as shown in the following image.

Carved Traces

Carved Pixels

Cast Traces

Etched Traces

Gilded Traces

Lasercut Circuit

Painted and Plated Circuit

Linocut and Printed Traces

Sculpted and Placed Circuit

Paper Speakers

Seashell Speakers

Screen-printed Traces

Vinylcut Traces

Sculpted Motor

Collection of Samples

Photo Book

>> Download Photobook
>> Order Photobook

Poster

>> Download Poster

Flickr Photo Set

This work was created during graduate studies in the High-Low Tech Research group.