zum original Deutschen Text springen

Martha’s Hat

or, how I came to Martha’s Hat

A report by Hannah Perner-Wilson

In January 2022, I received an email from the Women’s Officer of the University of Performing Arts Ernst Busch Berlin, describing an initial idea for the exhibition “Women with Names but Unknown”. Attached was a photo of Martha Koysela from 1918, with the invitation to produce a creative impulse for the exhibition.

I didn’t have to look at the photo for long to know that I wanted to find out more about Martha’s hat. I didn’t think I could really find her hat, but I thought I could try to find out as much as I could about it as a means to finding out more about Martha.

I don’t know anything about hats. A quick internet search for “ 920’s pot-shaped hat with fluffy stripes” yielded no results, so I didn’t try any further. Instead, I went to a few second-hand vintage clothing shops in Friedrichshain. On the one hand, I hoped I might find something similar that could offer me a clue via the hat’s brand/manufacturer. But I also had the photo of Martha with me to show the shop assistants, and ask them if they could tell me more about Martha’s hat. The only information I got, was that the hat was probably made of felt. This lead me to the traditional shop Kleemann Hüte in the Schönhauser Allee, which was founded in 1905 and has been run by the fashion designer Doreen Persche since 1998. Doreen was able to confirm from the photo that the basic hat was a pot shape, and probably made of brushed felt. The fluffy lines were heron feathers that were stitched down along their spine. As soon as she said this, I could recognise the fluff as a feather, but before that the thought had never occurred to me. Unfortunately Doreen could not tell me who might have made such a hat, how much it might have cost at the time. Nor who would have worn such a hat, and on which occasions…

After the visit to Kleemann Hüte I went to the University to select some props for a course from the theatre repository, when I noticed several old hat boxes on a shelf. Out of curiosity I opened one of them to see if there was anything inside. It was empty. The next box was also empty and the next one too, but maybe Martha’s hat would be in one of those boxes. My knees went weak. I would certainly have to sit down. If I were to find her hat, then I could then look at it up close, examine it. I put it on. I fits me!
I see that they are not heron feathers after all, but optic fibres! As someone who works with textiles and electronics, I am well aware that in Martha’s time, quirky glow-in-the-dark accessories were in fashion. Like this glow-in-the-dark hat.
The batteries have dried up, but I replace them and the fibres flicker. Who was Martha wat she would have worn such a hat for this photo, but did not turn it on? Maybe the batteries had run dry. Maybe she thought it was prettier without electricity. Maybe it was a message she wanted to send. That new achievements do not necessarily make life more beautiful. But maybe the hat was also just too bright for the photographic film back then. One new achievement drives another. On and on. I think Martha was a very elegant person with a critical sense of humour.

In February I caught Corona and was quarantined for 7 days. Stupidly, I had left Martha’s hat connected to the modern power bank. When I returned to university 7 days later, the battery was flat and the optic light fibres had grown! I can’t explain it, but I’m not even tempted to try, since I’ve long departed from reality.

original German text

Martha’s Hut

oder, wie ich zu Martha’s Hut kam

Ein Bericht von Hannah Perner-Wilson

Im Januar 2022 habe ich eine Email von der Frauenbeauftragen der HfS bekommen, mit einer ersten Idee für die Ausstellung “Frauen mit Namen aber Unbekannt”. Im Anhang war ein Photo von Martha Koysela aus 1918, mit der Einladung hierzu einen gestalterischen Impuls für die Ausstellung zu Verfassen.

Ich musste das Photo nicht lange anschauen um zu wissen, dass ich mehr über Martha’s Hut herausfinden wollte. Ich dachte nicht, dass ich ihren Hut wirklich finden könnte, aber ich dachte ich könnte versuchen so viel wie möglich darüber herauszufinden. Um auf Umwegen womöglich auch mehr über Martha zu erfahren.

Ich kenne mich mit Hüten gar nicht aus. Eine schnelle Internet Recherche nach “1920 Hut Topf-Form mit flauschigen Streifen” lieferte so gar keine Ergebnisse, dass ich es auch nicht weiter versucht habe. Stadt dessen hab ich mich auf den Weg gemacht in einige Secondhand Vintage Kleiderläden in Friedrichshain. Einerseits mit der Hoffnung ich könnte vielleicht irgendetwas ähnliches entdecken, und dann über Marke/Hersteller einen weiteren Anhaltspunkt finden. Aber auch hatte ich das Photo von Martha mit, um den VerkäuferInnen zu zeigen und sie zu befragen ob sie mir anhand dessen mehr über einen solchen Hut sagen könnten. Die einzige Information, die ich mehrfach bekam war, dass der Hut wahrscheinlich aus Filz sei. Zumindest führte mich diese Spur weiter zu dem Traditionsgeschäft Kleemann Hüte in der Schönhauser Allee, das 1905 gegründet wurde und seit 1998 von der Modistin Doreen Persche weitergeführt wird. Doreen konnte mir anhand des Photos bestätigen, dass der Basis Hut eine Topf-Form sei, und wahrscheinlich aus gebürstetem Filz gezogen. Die Flauschigen Linien wären aufgenähte Reiher-feder. Sobald sie das gesagt hat, konnte ich den Flausch auch als Feder erkennen, aber davor war mir der Gedanke nie gekommen. Aber leider konnte mir Doreen nicht sagen wer einen solchen Hut vielleicht hergestellt hätte, wie viel er zu der zeit vielleicht gekostet hätte. Wer einen solchen Hut, zu welchen Anlässen getragen hätte…

Nach dem Besuch bei Kleemann Hüte, war ich Nachmittags an der HfS um im Fundus Requisiten auszusuchen für einen Kurs, da fielen mir mehrere alte Hutboxen in einem Regal auf. Aus Neugierde machte ich eine davon auf um zu sehen ob was drinnen war. Sie war leer. Die nächste Box war auch leer und die nächste auch, aber vielleicht wäre Martha‘s Hut in einer dieser Boxen. Meine Knie wurden ganz weich. Ich müsste mich bestimmt hinsetzen. Ich könnte ihren Hut dann ganz aus der Nähe betrachten. Ich setze ihn auf. Er passt mir!
Ich sehe, dass es doch keine Reiher-feder sind, sondern Leuchtfaseren! Als jemand, die mit Textilien und Elektronik arbeitet, ist mir wohl bewusst, dass genau zu Martha‘s Zeit, skurrile leucht-Accessoires in Mode waren. Wie eben auch dieser leuchtender Hut.
Die Batterien sind schon ausgetrocknet, aber ich ersetze sie, und die Fasern flimmern. Wer war Martha, dass sie sich für dieses Photo einen Solchen Hut aufgesetzt hatte, aber diesen nicht eingeschaltet hatte? Vielleicht waren damals die Batterien schon alle. Vielleicht fand sie ihn schöner ohne Strom. Vielleicht war es eine Botschaft, die sie damit senden wollte. Das neue Errungenschaften das Leben nicht unbedingt schöner machen. Aber vielleicht war der Hut einfach auch zu hell für den Photofilm damals. Eine neue Errungenschaft, treibt die andere weiter. Immer weiter.Ich denke Martha war eine sehr elegante Person mit kritischem Humor.

Im Februar erwischt es mich mit Corona, und ich bin ganze 7 tage in Quarantäne. Blöderweise hatte ich Martha’s Hut eingeschaltet gelassen an die moderne Powerbank. Wie ich wieder auf die Uni kann, ist die Batterie leer, und die Leuchtfasern sind gewachsen! Ich kann es mir nicht erklären. Aber ich versuche es auch nicht, denn von der Wirklichkeit habe ich mich schon längst entfernt.

Making-of

Photos >> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/albums/72177720297630698/with/51965530884/

Many thanks to:

Vanessa for sending me Martha’s photo and inviting me to create something for the exhibition “Frauen Mit Namen aber Unbekannt”, to Doreen at Kleeman Hüte für replicating the base felt hat shape from the photo, to Maurin Donneaud for sending me bundles of sandblasted optic fibres from our Lulu project!

Spaghettimonster >> https://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=9137
Bandsalat >> https://github.com/clockdiv/Spaghettimonster/

Sensitive Puppets >> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/albums/72157713930789442

Monstersalat >> https://www.plusea.at/?p=7201

my longest running unfinished idea.

JOY SLIPPERS (2007)
>> http://www.joyslippers.plusea.at/

WIRELESS JOY SLIPPERS
>> https://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=565

SCONIC INSOLES
>> https://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=6927

SOLE SENSING
>> https://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=8305

SOFT WALK SOCKS (2021)
>> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/albums/72157718580873631

tucked away under the shade of a tree, The Headless Pin Tattoo Studio is open to all, and always hiring. come by and let us temporarily tattoo you with a design that captures your current project. while we work on you, lay back, relax, tell us about your practice. what are you making? why are you making? open up to us, tell us more, what ideas are you chasing? what ideas are chasing you?

to us makers/hackers the world is a malleable place, full of materials and tools that we can use to realize our ideas and shape our surroundings. but what about how we are equally remade in our collaborations with other materials?
if our tools and materials could talk, what stories would they tell of “our” making?

in the summer of 2021 a small group of humans headed to PIFcamp to tattoo people’s projects as stories of their making.

: tattoo artists :
https://leonivoegelin.com/
https://rodolfoacostacastro.github.io/
https://www.jannenorakummer.de/
https://julianjungel.de/
https://www.plusea.at/

she’s been storytelling

he’s been navigating

she’s been jumping

she’s been imagining

she’s been drawing

he’s been breathing

he’s been ferminting

she’s been hurting

he’s been listening

she’s been sending

she’s been wanting

more photos >> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/albums/72157719753897571
pifcamp >> https://pif.camp/tattoostales-from-the-making/

S01E01 steel and wool fibers

S01E02 metal wrapped threads

see also our post on Meet the Mateirals of Electronic Textiles >> https://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=8012

mask option 1:


mask option 2:


mask option 3:


Initial sketches for the masks:

see also:
LEVEL1_THE REMAKE >> https://www.plusea.at/?p=6605
under the influence >> https://www.plusea.at/?p=6887
this level was designed as part of Authren

general documentation photos >> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/albums/72157717095909521

DOWNLOADS_

instruction booklet >>
gameboard for print >> http://plusea.at/downloads/games/MaterialAdventures/MaterialAdventures_L2/_MAboard_L2_v2_printA4.pdf
gameboard full >>

THE GAMEBOARD VERSIONS_

PLAYS_

28.1.2021 in Authren
“kennst du das wenn der raum so authred?”
“do you know that when the room goes so authred?”>> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/albums/72157717095909521

Social distancing as an opportunity for material intimacy? As somebody who leads crafty hands-on material workshops (mostly on e-textiles and physical computing), I’ve been trying to find interesting ways of communicating these experiences remotely, without relying on a setup in which participants spend the majority of their time in front of devices. The social distancing measures that we are currently taking to slow the spread of covid-19, bar us from gathering physically with other humans, but nothing is stopping us from getting intimate with other (inanimate) beings. Maybe, all alone with other materials, we are able to get even more materially intimate with them!

see also:
LEVEL2_THE REMIX >> https://www.plusea.at/?p=7032
this level was designed as part of my teaching at Spiel und Objekt

general documentation photos >> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/albums/72157713698549692

THE GAMEBOARD V3_

GAMEBOARD PDF for print (4xA4):
http://plusea.at/downloads/games/MaterialAdventures/MaterialAdventures_L1/V3/MaterialAdventures_L1_V3_board_A4print.pdf

GAMEBOARD JPG full (30x70cm):
>> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/50986939232/sizes/l/

THE GAMEBOARD V2_

GAMEBOARD JPG full (30x70cm):
>> https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50010943853_60ea873e69_b.jpg

THE GAMEBOARD V1_

INSTRUCTION_BOOKLET PDF (A6):
http://plusea.at/downloads/games/MaterialAdventures/MaterialAdventures_L1/MaterialAdventures_L1_V1_instructions.pdf
GAMEBOARD PDF for print (4xA4):
http://plusea.at/downloads/games/MaterialAdventures/MaterialAdventures_L1/MaterialAdventures_L1_V1_board_A4print.pdf
GAMEBOARD JPG full (30x70cm):
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49726356018_d5c5e3de6b_b.jpg

PLAYS_

play1 (S&&O 1jhg SS2020) >> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/albums/72157713698011278
play2 (f&n 2020) >> …
play3 (S&&O 2jhg WS20/21) >> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/sets/72157717394399738/
stickers >> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/albums/72157713903023941

This story has two origins that accidentally collided one careless morning in my studio.

One origin came from the experience of being in the jungle and trying to go about things I am used to doing inside my studio, in the wild.

>> Hacking the Wild project page
>> Flickr set https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/albums/72157650592167875
Hacking the Wild project page

Realizing that I was poorly equipped to work well in this different environment, but also enjoying seeing my outdoor environment as being full of materials. This lead me to start considering making as a means of experiencing the world as a topic for further projects&exploration, and to build A Wearable Studio Practice – items that would allow me to more easily take my practice outside the confines of my studio’s walls.

Among the items I made myself was a pincushion bracelet so that I could wear my pins close at hand.

The other origin began when I started considering a simple tailors straight pin to not only be a tool, but also a material with which I could build things. Leading me to explore The Anatomy of a Pin.

Their enticing sharpness allows pins to pierce through materials, including our skin. As straight lines they are capable of amplifying the movement of a surface they’re connected to, and collectively they accumulate into a soft manoeuvreable fur. With a hole on one end they can pull a soft line of thread through other materials, holding these together to construct three-dimensional forms. Being made of metal they are able to conduct electricity, and can be used to close a circuit to detect touch. As simple and commonly known tools they are transparent and familiar, and we use them to manipulate our world.

>> Anatomy of a Pin project category
>> Anatomy of a Pin Instructables Collection
>> Anatomy of a Pin Flickr photo collection

I used their sharpness to pierce other materials in order to highlight movements making Dangerous Lashes and Maneuverable Fur.

Used them to create a series of Dangerous Sensors:

And warned of their ability to penetrate our skin with icons like these:

Then went on to re-create their sharpness by 3D printing Dangerous Fur.

When interviewed for a zine on situated knowledges at the time, I said: I’ve been thinking about the straight pins that tailors use in dressmaking to pin fabrics together. They’re so reduced to their elements. There’s one end that’s intended for us to interact with and that’s the head, where we won’t poke ourselves. Then there’s the sharp end that we’re not going to interact with and that’s going to be interacting with the material. And then there’s the shaft in between, which is the distance between us and the material, which is kind of a tool.

>> http://situated.systems/knowledges/02/situatedsystems_zine02_screen.pdf

Then, one morning in September 2018, I was impatient and rushed and an accident happened. The Headless Pin slipped inside my body and stayed there for quite some time. This experience of living with one of my tools inside of me got me thinking about my relationship with the materials of my practice and how they form me as much as I manipulate them.

The following March 2019, I engaged in an experiment where I set off on a journey with a material and tried to capture all that happened both to me, as well as to the material. This journey is captured in letters, samples and a piece of writing titled Getting Lost and Unlearning Certainty.

Shortly after getting lost with thermochromic pigment, I spent one month on a game residency, thinking about what I could turn into a game while walking every day in the woods behind the house. Every project begins with a walk in the woods is the beginning of an attempt to capture how a practice of making with materials is an opportunity to observe oneself being material, and how to share this opportunity through a game that everybody could play.

That summer I gave a presentation at the CCC Camp 2019, in which I attempted to tell this story…. with some humor, but also trying to build up to the moment of becoming material, as a moment of surprise.

And finally, currently, Seasonal Sensors is the latest and ongoing attempt at remembering we are materials too.

And possibly this idea for a workshop titled Capturing Process is a desire to distill techniques for observing our material-ness (our own material qualities) in order to sensitize ourselves through observing, documenting and examining our conversations (our making processes) with other materials.

To be continued…

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
a guided meditation
in noticing the electrical conductivity of materials
including our bodies
a practice in
unraveling our material knots
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

An ongoing collaboration with Fereshteh Toosi.

We first met in June 2019, during a week-long workshop titled Blurring Boundaries that Hannah taught at Shakerag. We had a chance to experience each other’s practices and discovered that we are both trying to understand how humanity has come to perceive itself as separate from nature, to trace the effects of this ideology on the current environmental crisis, and to explore possible undoings of this distinction, through our artistic and technological practices.

We next met in November 2019 for a 1-week residency titled —Tasting the Change— in the English countryside. Here we shared thoughts on how conversation on the climate crisis has turned to the possibility that we have run out of time. Movements like Extinction Rebellion are calling for us to consider human extinction as a real possibility. In the face of this possible future, some are seeking new ways to survive while many people around the world have already been suffering displacement and health effects of material extraction for a long time. It is the residents of wealthier countries who are only now beginning to feel threatened by humans’ impact on the earth.

We’ve tried to distill our thoughts into three leading questions:
* How to make our way towards a new vantage point of human-nature-culture entanglement?
* How do render ourselves careful instead of helpless?
* How to deal with our positions of privilege in such an undertaking?

Unraveling our Material Knots is our first step in tracing our human-nature-culture division. What >means< make ourselves feel more part of the material world, and not separate from it?
We want to act upon this feeling.

//
other working titles:
Invisible Circuits
Common Ground
Human-Nature Interactions (HNI)
//

Photos >> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/albums/72157711843743071
Tasting the Change: residency >> https://artdotearth.org/hothouse-coolhouse-residency/

Course website >> https://gtt.ufg.at/fff2019/
Course summary >> https://gtt.ufg.at/projekt-faser-faden-fiction/

Photos >> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/albums/72157710869132172

The pair of leggings are made conductive via a technique of polypyrrole polymerization. Using tie-dye technique to create areas of non-conductivity. This work was done in collaboration with Cedric and Paul at the University of Saarbrücken in August 2019. And would not have been possible without the recipe from Anna.

I made these leggings for the purpose of demonstrating the in-situ tie-die style polymerization of pyrrol. In their most basic setup, the leggings have force sensitive resistance areas at the knees. this information is sent over wifi to a computer running an application that translates knee bend into forward and backward arrow key presses.

Making-of

Making-of:

These functional leggings are actually made up of 4 layers:

+ under-leggings with sensor circuit traces and snap connections to skirt

+ over-leggings with sensor areas

+ skirt with snap connections from skirt to i/o board and pouch for battery

+ i/o board with snap connections to sensor circuit traces via skirt

KNEE BEND TEST

streight knee/relaxed sensor: 442 K Ohm

bent knee/strained sensor: 310 K Ohm

The decision to polymerzie leggings came for these reasons:

– on the size-scale of fabrics we were polymerizing, leggins represent a medium-to-large piece of fabric which provided us with an interesting challenge/test of scaling up our process.

– leggings are an iconic item of clothing associated with the tie-dye technique and hippie fashion, allowing us to make a visual reference to one of the (hi)stories behind what we are doing.

– for some time i’ve been thinking I need to make myself a piece of use(less) wearable technology to wear when i present my work to help me demonstrate my idea of “make your tech and wear it too” – and a pair of leggings that allow me to control my presentation by bending my knees seemed perfect.

The decisions I made of how to apply the tie resist technique to create separated polymerized regions on different parts of the leggings were made amid a myriad of influences (possibilities, requirements, constraints) that I have tried to organize into the following categories of influence:

– electrical functionality: capturing bend of the knees, touch to the thighs, stretch of the crotch

– aesthetics: appealing distribution of black and white, large and small surface areas, quality of lines. elegance of functional solution as all-in-one, robustness

– use of resources, elegance/efficiency of process: to save poly material by tying off any regions that would not be needed for sensing and combining this decision with the aesthetic decisions.

– opportunities (not constraints) of the technique: binding always has to take place around the material, lending itself to create lines and circular shapes.

From many possibilities to actual implementation
After a late-night attempt at trying to solve the entire circuitry within the polymerized leggings – accounting for traces from sensor regions to a central point where a connector could be mounted and integrating voltage dividing resistors as well – I decided to only solve for the sensing regions (squeeze, pressure, stretch) in the tie-poly leggings and to solve the traces and resistors separately. Thus the Tie-Poly Leggings are only the outer-layer of a two-legging layering system. The under-leggings [] solve for the conductive traces that lead to the sensor regions, and a break-out pouch [] connects these to the xOSC wireless i/o module or a wired TeensyLC. Metal snap connectors make for a removeable connection between the under-leggings and the pouch.

Techniques:
In-Situ Polymerization >> http://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=7826
Tie-Poly Resist Technique >> http://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=7825

4 LAYERS:

Polymerized Over-Leggings
These leggings were tie-polymerized in order to achieve both visually and electrically seperated areas of black polymerization and conductivity.
the original intention was the sense bending of the knees via stretch of a polymerized circle on knit4 fabric over the front of knee. initial tests showed this fabric to work well for the purpose, but in the final version the fact that the marble object inside the knee region used to achieve the polymerized circle interfered with the thorough polymerization of the fabric, rendering it sufficiently useless for this purpose, while in comparison the back region of the knee was well polymerized and could be used to sense bend of the knee via compression of the fabric behind the knee.

made of:
1- bamboo & elastan (Karstadt)
2- viscose & elastan (Karstadt)

materials were selected because:

– in the initial tests they showed to polymerize well (meaning the black polypyrrol appeared to adhere to the fibers since very little black rubbed off after only a single rinse (1min under cold running water with light mechanical rubbing of the material against itself).

– the resistance range (after 1hour polymerization) was ca. < 500K Ohm / sq. (to be bellow range of body/skin resistance).

– 1’s compression sensing characteristics yielded a range of 100 K Ohm (light press) – 20 K Ohm (hard press) with 5mm wide electrode strips spaced 2mm apart running parallel on same side of the material (see FIG).

– 2’s stretch sensing characteristics yielded a range of 100 K Ohm (relaxed state) – 20 K Ohm (stretched) when measured between 2cm long electrodes spaced 2cm apart (see FIG).

OVER LEGGINGS (front and back)

Electrode Under-Leggings
4 electrodes sewn as strips of stretch conductive fabric travel from along the front waistband in pairs to the backs of the knees. the spacing between the paired electrodes is smallest in two areas that i wanted to sense compression of the fabric from bend at the knee and hip. unfortunately, in my first tie-dye attempt i forgot to to leave the hip region free for polymerization and this the sensor function in this region is not working. But next time!

made of:
– cotton and elastan (pink) – selected for it’s 2-way stretch, thinness (not to produce extra bulk) and comfort (soft to touch and natural fiber blend).
– Shieldex® Technik-tex P130, silverized lycra, 78% Polyamide + 22% Elastomer, 99% pure Silver – selected for it’s 2-way stretch and high conductivity (< 2 Ohms/square).

UNDER LEGGINGS (front and back):

Mini-Circuit Skirt
sewn from a woven black cotton fabric. short so that the leggings remain as visible as possible. with pockets to contain the 5V power-bank and additional presentation props. and 4 pairs of metal snap connectors. Each pair of snaps is electrically connected with a short strip of Technik-tex P130, and one snap connects to the electrode terminals on the under-leggings, the other connects to a removable i/o board broken out into a soft circuit made by sewing copper thread (Karl-Grimm) into leather to make connections between an xOSC mounted via low-profile headers on a protoboard [see FIG].

SKIRT:

i/o Wireless Board
an xOSC mounted via low-profile headers on a protoboard. The xOSC streams the readings from the analog input pins connected to the two knee sensors via OSC to a nearby computer. The computer runs a Processing sketch that uses simple threshold detection to determine knee bend when the sensor reading passes the threshold (this can be solved much more reliably using absolute change as the sensor values drift over time!). The Robot library is used to trigger the RIGHT and LEFT_ARROW key presses so that the leggings control the the slides in a slide-show.

WIRELESS i/o (x-OSC, front and back):

connecting:

WIRED option

connecting:

CONNECTIONS BETWEEN UNDER- and OVER LEGGINS and SKIRT:

DOCUMENTATION:
Counter Chemists >> https://counterchemists.github.io/

PolySense: Augmenting Materials with Electrical Functionality (using In-Situ Polymerization).
>> https://counterchemists.github.io/files/PolySense.pdf

CCC Camp video
>> https://media.ccc.de/v/Camp2019-10375-make_your_tech_and_wear_it_too

Micro – Polymerization >> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/albums/72157710884689521

Polymerization >> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/albums/72157710354823622

Tie-Poly Leggings >> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/albums/72157710685191162

Tie-Poly Datagloves >> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/albums/72157710838047002/with/48731152298/

Links

Publication >> https://counterchemists.github.io/files/PolySense.pdf

Counter Chemists website >> https://counterchemists.github.io/

EXAMPLES
Tie-Poly Leggings: Hippie slide-control
>> https://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=7823

MATERIALS & TECHNIQUES
speculating about piezoresistance >> https://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=7832
In-Situ Polymerization >> http://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=7826
Etching >> https://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=7841
Resist Techniques >> http://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=7825

PHOTOS
polymerization (all) >> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/albums/72157710354823622
leggings >> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/albums/72157710685191162
datagloves >> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/albums/72157710838047002

VIDEOS
>> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxMxh4ORY0EXyDBY6Q_3t1LnaMRwgfYNi

>> https://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=7823
>> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/albums/72157710685191162

CREDITS: The Counter Chemists, Ana C Baptista, Cedric @ datapaulette, Hannah Perner-Wilson, Paul Strohmeier

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/

My plans for Dinacon were to develop An Underwater Studio Practice, but when I arrived and began going underwater to crochet and (thanks to Kitty) discovered plarn (plastic yarn), this practice lead me to write a story about ocean plastic as the result of our human ability to make.

>> https://www.dinacon.org/2018/07/24/crochetteering-a-tale-of-fishy-innovation/
>> https://www.dinacon.org/2018/06/02/an-underwater-studio-practice/
Flickr set >> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/albums/72157696220704072

Chapter 1: The FPEA

One day all the fish in all the oceans complained to all the humans on all the lands about all the plastic in all the oceans. The humans were upset by this complaint be- cause although they had been suspecting for some time that all their plastic ending up in all the oceans was not a good thing, they had not done anything about it. The humans told the fish their complaint was unwarranted and continued to ignore a fact. The fish told the humans that they would result to drastic measures and threatened with bio-terrorism. Their equivalent of suicide bombing would mean swarms of fish would swim to highly toxic water to intoxicate themselves with pollution that would travel all the way up the food-chain to kill “innocent” humans.

This posed a serious thread that the humans could not choose to ignore. A committee was voted into action. This committee met for several week to come up with a very creative solution. And this was their conclusion:

Plastic is in fact a valuable resource and the fish have not been able to recognise this. Humans must educate fish on how they can use this resource to their own benefit.

As part of this Fish Plastics Education Act, makers and plastics technologists were recruited to go underwater and teach the fish how to make useful things from the plastics in their oceans.
After only a few months of running this programme it was deemed a huge success. This fish were thrilled by all the possibilities available to them and had many ideas for “up-cycling” the plastics in their oceans. But there was a problem, the fish were not able to make the things the humans were showing them themselves. Without hand and big enough brains, they could not man the machines or manipulate the materials. The human answer to this dilemma was to hire a fill-time crew of professional makers to spend their days underwater making whatever the fish told them to out of plastic.

Chapter 2: Plarn
Implementing the Fish Plastic Education Act was a huge undertaking that required all the humans in all the lands to cooperate. Although lands in which little or no fish were part of the traditional diet were reluctant to make as much effort.
Shortly after signing the Act, the trans-national Fish Plastic Education Association was founded and began recruiting maker all over the world. These makers put together a catalog of designs that could be made from the plastic in the oceans. The catalog was printed on recycled ocean plastic paper and posted in every body of water.
The orders division of the FPEA began taking orders right away and makers all over the world were put to work to fulfil these orders.
While the first edition of the order catalog contained designs for custom 3D printed prosthesis, sports equipment and educational games, it was soon updated with designs based on what the fish were actually ordering. More than 90% of all orders were for fashion items – clothing and accessories.
Among the first most popular rends were stripy tank tops and cuttlefish skirts crochet from plarn – a yarn made from discarded plastic bags. Especially in coastal regions with high fish populations the FPEA began recruiting large numbers of crochetteers to fulfil these orders.
Crochetteers, as they called themselves, established a whole new profession around the craft of crochet plarn fashion. Quickly moving on from stripy vests to high-tech wearables and PE-Textiles (Plastic Electronic Textiles).

Chapter 3: Crochetteering

Fish, it turned out, were much more tech-savvy than humans, within only a few years every fish in the ocean was a digital native. As a collective super-organism, fish were the first to adopt ocean-wide wearable technology which they used primarily for data collection. Just like everything else that they depended on in their lives, the data they collected, belonged to The Ocean. The Ocean accumulated this data and every fish had unrestricted access so that they could know the effects of their behaviour on their ecosystem.
Crochetteers were at the forefront of developing these underwater wearable technologies and the first makers to fully comply with the fish’s demand for a zero waste, fully circular innovation process. “Crochetteering” because the term used to describe this holistic techno-craft invention process that only considers solutions that solve for the Whole Earth Equation (WEE) with a time-factor of <5 years. This means that every design in the Ocean Plastic Design Catalog has it’s full life-cycle planned in ahead. Resources remain resources. Waste becomes obsolete.

Chapter 4: Fishy Factors

Crochetteering’s success relied on some fishy factors. These became more apparent, the harder humans tried (and failed) to replicate crochetteering’s success for themselves.
Most notable of these factors was the fish’s concept of “The Ocean” – their inability to perceive themselves as individual entities, separate from their habitat, and their inability to to comprehend the concept of waste – proved impossible for humans to replicate.
In attempts to attain such fish states of mind, humans tried many things. Some modified their genes, few went to live among them, many studid them intensely. But to this date human have not been successful in evolving their individuality back into a super-organismic state of mind.
With over 1/3 of the world’s human population now employed by the FPEA, global production of plastics has decreased by more than half, simply because makers are so busy making and remaking ocean plastic designs for fish that they don’t have time to make for humans.
While the majority of makers employed by the FPEA state they are happy living out their lives in service of the fish, there has recently been an increase in makers asking “What Next?” – must humans remain sub-servant to other life-forms in order to fulfil their role in the Whole Earth Equation?

Crochetteering – a tale of fishy innovation
A good-night story for Dinaconnaisseurs

europe is at peace here
i’m going to need to add wine to the stew
we should have our own ali express and sell our sinuses to china

we are sensors
squeeze, we need to squeeze
maybe there was another civilization before…

do you want to solder one?
yeah, yeah, yeah

i’m in love with machines but i’m fighting with it,
because what does it have to do with people

whatever is bitter is calming

you exhale all your breath and then we go in the water
the cold water helps the oxygen to go into every cell
every lazy cell

3D printing is all about making fast objects
ephimeral sculptures that grow

i’m not talking about the global dumpling
planetairy dumpings, every culture has their own fillings
food, a medium for understanding how we make sense of the world

sedimentation, fermentations, destillation
i thought they were green last night

observe what is happening right now
on the toilet, the seat keeps falling down
common sense

there’s an elegance to a circuit having minmal components
maybe the stop button can be added afterwards, this is just reset
i really like that machines run on electricity

psychoactive plants of the northern hemosphere are more demanding
i always imagine jumping into the other wall and bouncing off
the effect is more pleasant than the first one

can i have some of your thyme?

while downloading the plan we listen to radioactivity
it was really custom toys in russia, burning plastic bags and dripping
fermenting knowledge, to preserve it and make it more digestable

where does the abuse start?
power in the hands of a giant company
it’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice

knowledge is value
i just want to enjoy
YOLO

soca souvenier
made by an artisan 3D printer
we created something that will be here for at least 100 000 years

tina, tina, what’s up?
we have a plan
next year we will sell out sinuses to china

i still have to shave