User:Vitrinekast/Thesis Proposal

If your biometric eye no longer functions because the company that produces them went bankrupt, it means that you didn’t actually own the eyes in the first place. This is an example of why repair, both the right to and the skill of, is important. Through repair & DIY, we can take back control of these things. Unfortunately, buying new is usually the more cheap, accessible and easy option. Outsourcing maintenance to a monthly Swapfiets subscription is easier then learning how to repair & maintain yourself. Buying a new lamp is quicker then discovering what actually blew the fuse in the first place. And buying new hardware is the easier, cheaper and more reliable option then salvaging existing components from e-waste.

But, by joining & hosting workshops and gatherings around repair and repurposing, I’ve noticed how empowering it can be to take back this autonomy: To fix your own bike, to discover what a fuse is or to make (or break) a circuit together. A shared attempt to uncover some of the black boxes in our own products. As Garnet Hertz and Jussi Parikka state, probably to discover even more black boxes, that have become completely obsolete. .

”Salvage computing believes that the end of a computer product’s lifecycle should be seen as a moment of celebration”. Instead of noting down a time of death, the obsolete device could be the start of something new. Trough this thesis & project, I want to challenge my own idea that buying new hardware is quicker then salvaging for hardware. This thesis will be a field guide for the salvaging from- and reusing of abandoned/obsolete media, to create sound devices.

Field Guide

The field guide can offer the reader guidance in the identification of components (Electronic components such as resistors, transistors, etc.) when salvaging. It will include recipes for using the components to create sound devices, and examples on how this was approached during the DIWO gatherings, further described in the project proposal.

An example of an earlier created recipe is Printer Jam, a performance I did together with Riviera Taylor, where we’ve used live coding practices combined with abandoned printers, into a percussive instrument.

The field guide is an open-ended, pocket sized, compact book, so the reader (and me) is invited to take the publication outside, further investigate, annotate and experiment with the discarded materials. This also gives me the opportunity to to continue the research after the project has ended.

Thesis outline

Quick start guide

A text on how to salvage components, great places to find them , things to look out for. This is also a place to discuss the difficulty in salvaging components from modern hardware. If it is helpful for the rest of the field guide, it could include a short glossary.

Components

An overview of Resistors, transistors, LED’s, capacitors, switches, knobs, speakers, coils, that can be found in the wild. Of each component, i’ll include:

• Visual representation
• If and where I’ve found them
• What they could be used for (reference to the recipes later)
• Variants of this component
• Empty space for notes

Will include a subsection for “rare” components. I expect that chips (counters, 555 timers) will be way more difficult to salvage. What are ways to work around these components? Are there any devices to look out for where these components can be salvaged?

Recipes for sound devices

7(?) recipes on making sound devices. Each recipe has been “tested” trough the DIY/DIWO hangouts as part of the project. These are the ones defined now:

• Creating oscillators using easily salvageable components
• Building sequencers using relays
• Building triggers/LFO’s using encoders
• Using motors to create oscillators

Each recipe has

• Title
• image/visual representation
• audio example(s)
• description
• schematic
• When/how/with whom i’ve made them (reference to the DIWO hangouts)
• Recommendations for further development
• empty space for notes

Conclusion

Is salvaging for components a fruitful practice?