The Printed Circuit Board (PCB) has become the default architecture of the electronic devices that are driving our largely technologically-mediated reality: Electronic components on two-dimensional stacked layers are routing power and signals, energy and material, usually optimized towards signal integrity, power efficiency, profitable use of material, etc. A part of this Fachmodul will be to give an introduction to common PCB design and manufacturing practices, with a large emphasis on interventions in the underlying conventions and assumptions that are implied by the state of the art, industrial "best" practices: What happens if the PCB becomes an open space? What alternatives architectures can we imagine if we come with our own experimental, irrational, expression-oriented rules? What new dys/functions, alternative energy regimes and materialities, shapes and overall new artistic and design gestures may result from that? In this Fachmodul we will no longer pretend to be electrical engineers, but instead try to discover electronics as a spatial medium in itself. More practially speaking, this class will be scheduled around the following milestones: - a beginner-friendly introduction to electronics for artists and designers - a tutorial on KiCAD ( open source PCB design software ) - an introduction to milling our own PCBs - a series of hands-on sessions to develop sculptural work based on our gained knowledge in electronics and circuit design If you would like to join this class, please write me ( lotta.stoever@uni-weimar.de ) a short e-mail with your (user-)name, study background and briefly describe your interest in the class (max. 200 words). |
