Workshop Ephemeris: Unmaking the metric surface

12  + 13 November > 09h - 18h
Fee: 30 € (all materials included)

Syllabus: 

Day 1
Morning: Introduction, tools and materials, workflow with Arduino, motors, threads and objects.
Afternoon: Elaboration of groups, project proposals, first elaborations, code snippets

Day 2 
Thinking about methodology: Unmaking, briefs on computer-device communication, project finalisation / merging, feedback session

Objectives:

This workshop proposes the use of the movements that populate and reshape the planet’s crust (irrigation systems, conveyor belts, leveling machines, water sluices, tractors, etc.) as a "physical diagramming" that recreates – and, by doing so, interferes with – the machinery through which this relation to the Earth is produced. To do so, it will propose the use of obsolete metric tools – rulers, right triangles, compasses, protractors – as kinetic objects to be animated by simple electronic motors and basic mechanical components. An introduction to the needed programming and electronic skills will be provided, in order to be finally able to link data from the computer to the mechanical devices. 

Trainer’s Bio:

Abelardo G. Fournier is an artist and researcher. His work speculates with the notion of a digital colonisation of the visual, both by machine vision systems and the industrial coating of visible surfaces. His practice is based on the elaboration of platforms -installations, devices and workshops- conceived as laboratories, where art, knowledge and politics intersect.

Some of his work has been developed in artist residencies in El Ranchito / Matadero (Madrid), Laboral Center of Art (Gijón) and the Spanish broadcast television Canal+, or as commissions of institutions such as CROMAFest in Mexico DF or the open hardware company Ultra-lab. His projects have been shown in international exhibitions and festivals and reviewed in mainstream blogs on art and digital culture.

He is currently a PhD student at the Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton, part of the AMT Archaeologies of Media and Technology Research Group and part-time instructor at the European University of Madrid.