Are You Conductive? - hands on, creative workshop & interactive installation with Stefanie Wuschitz (Vienna) :: March 17 - 20, 2010; 2:00 - 7:00 pm + March 20, 7:00 - 9:00 pm :: Werkstatt, Brienner Straße 48, München.

Focusing on uniting sustainable low tech and untypical materials with high tech in a poetic and fluent way, we will be creating changeable patterns, forms and shapes within the electric circuit, experimenting with resistance and conductivity to create hand made switches and analogue sensors from magnetite stones, conductive thread/ fabric, graphite, organic and found materials to be joined to a spatial interactive and sensual circuit, consisting of movable parts, connected to the micro controller Arduino.

1) Collecting and connecting different materials, found objects and electronic parts to a simple electric circuits, containing small speakers, motors and lights; Trying out sustainable ways of power production with solar panels and organic batteries; Looking into a device called ‘Arduino’ to connect everything interactively.

2) Exploring the possibilities of the space for arranging a large scale room installation from the electronic circuits built so far and connecting them with analog conductive materials meaningfully; Drawing with conductive ink and graphite, implementing light sensors that react with sound to any interaction.

3) Building the sound part of the installation with the help of an open source software called ‘processing’ (java-based application for creating interactive graphics and animations in connection to Arduino)

4) Are you conductive? Join the circuit for immersive experience!

Materials to bring:

• Laptop, USB cables (mini to normal), Arduino (except for the case that you want to share one it with someone or try out an Arduinos we have)
• Soldering iron, wire, solar panels (12 Volt and 6 Volt), servo motors, LEDs, resistors, vans (maybe from broken computers), hammer, nails, glue, needle and threat .. (if available), basics will be around though.
• Conductive materials: wood, old video tape (preferable before 1995), graphite, metal, lemons, food etc:

To get an Arduino and a Processing themselves:
http://www.arduino.cc/
http://processing.org/

(Suggested Arduinos: Duemilanove - This is the latest revision of the basic Arduino USB board or Diecimila - This is the previous revision of the basic Arduino USB board)

Max participants: 10-12

To participate: Please send an e-mail (until March 10. 2010) to workshop at aa-vv.org with a brief statement of your interest and background. The URL of your activity would be helpful too.

Fee: 55,- Euro (including basic electronic parts and materials)

Stefanie Wuschitz uses interactive technology to build mobile sound and video installations site-specifically encouraging the construction of unique social and collaborative spaces. Her current focus is on subversive public art produced by women with wireless technology. She was one of the organizers of the international festival ‘Eclectic Tech Carnival’ in Umeå/Sweden and founder of ‘Miss Baltazar’s Laboratory’= weekly workshops on Open Source Software, Arduino, art techniques as e.g. laser cutting, wearable technology and circuit building (currently based at Metalab/Vienna) as well as conducted the following workshops: Mobile-hack-day, Supersimple Robots Workshop at Letní dílny Čistírna-Prague, XBee Workshop at OKNO Bruessels, Mobile Processing Workshop, Stockholm, Sweden etc. http://metalab.at/wiki/Lage; http://www.mzbaltazarslaboratory.org