11 December 2019, 15-18:00 at TH Nürnberg, Germany

Download PDF documentation of outcome >> http://kobakant.at/downloads/PDFs/20-takingPartsApart_THnurnberg.pdf
Photos >> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/albums/72157712797821188

A hands-on exercise in getting to know the electronic parts that make up the technologies we use every day.
After understanding how they work, can we re-imagine them to be made in different ways?

Links:
>> konp.plusea.at/
>> A Kit-of-No-Parts at Weissensee (2014)

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Uncreativity Discussion

Bilton, Chris. (2014) Uncreativity : the shadow side of creativity. International Journal of Cultural Policy. ISSN 1028-6632 (In Press)
>> http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/59837/

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Kit-of-Parts

A Kit-of-Parts
(wikipedia >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kit-of-parts)

THEORY – Kit-of-parts Theory refers to the study and application of object-oriented building techniques, where building components are pre-designed / pre-engineered / pre-fabricated for inclusion in construction systems.

CONSTRUCTION – Kit-of-parts construction is a special subset of pre-fabrication that not only attempts to achieve flexibility in assembly and efficiency in manufacture, but also by definition requires a capacity for demountability, disassembly, and reuse.

PHILOSOPHY – Kit-of-parts philosophy goes hand in hand with advanced manufacturing, automation, and computer and information technologies. Handling multiple identical components as instances of a master element is an efficient use of the computer in the planning stage, and use of standard components can take advantage of mass-production and mass-customization manufacturing technologies.

If we look at the electronic devices that surround us we can start to notice that much of their functionality, form, their materiality and the ways in which we interact with them are influenced by the parts they are made up of.
+ the shapes of screens, buttons
+ the actions of pressing, scrolling, swiping…
+ the hard plastic, metallic materials
+ the slick, smooth, rounded shapes of industrial production

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TAKING PARTS APART

+ work alone or team up in group of 2
+ pick a part (you don’t know)
+ hand out blank A5 pages and pencils/pens

PART 1

knowing, noticing, imaging what parts can do…

select a part and examine it using only your body
(your senses of vision, smell, taste, touch, your knowledge of other things, your ability to notice, analyze and make connections).

give it a name. describe what it does.

who made it?
when did they make it? where they make it? what is it made of?

where your knowledge ends, your imagination begins

capture all that you see with pencil on paper

show&tell: everybody presents what they have been able to know about their part.

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PART 2

with the help of tools…..

now take tools in your hands and use these to open,
dismantle, distroy your part.

do so in order to find out more.

examine your part’s insides closely and with utter curiosity.

do what you could not know with your body alone.

capture all that you see with pencil and paper

show&tell: everybody presents what they have been able to know about their part.

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DISCUSS

Were you able to gain knowledge from taking the parts apart?
What kind of knowledge is it? What is it of?
……..

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REVEAL

Name, explain, demonstrate what the parts are.
+ materials
+ datasheets

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An ETextile (Un)Creative Practice?

ETextiles as a field of practice looking to combine electrical functionalities into textile materialities finds itself in conversation with the kit-of-parts system of electronic components.

ETextiles combines the above electronic characteristics with the materiality, history, wearability of textiles (and textile crafts). This act of combining offers oppertunity to expand/diversify the field of electronics into *new* possibilities.

ETextiles – Soft Circuits – Textile Sensors
As a creative process, etextiles looks to figure out new solutions that allow combinations of:
+ hard&soft materialities
+ industrial&craft processes
+ new&old technologies and techniques
+ female&male gender roles

The immediate contrast/contradiction between hard components and soft fibers offers much space for working *outside the box*, inventing *new* solutions, discovering new ideas.

ETextile practitioners often find themselves unpacking the functionalities contained within component parts in order to:
+ understand how they work
+ get at the underlying materials
+ discard the excess packaging of standardization
+ free ourselves (both physically and mentally) from the constraints of the kit-of-parts system

But what impact does the highly standardized, globalized, systematic, kit-of-parts approach (that has enabled ever more complex technologies and now shapes the processes of working with electricity) have on a creative process of working with the materials of electronics?

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A Kit-of-No Parts?

>> konp.plusea.at/
>> https://www.plusea.at/?p=1855