Machinology

AMT was again part of the Istanbul Design Biennial, this time together with Bilkent University (Ankara) hosting a workshop and a panel. We responded to the main theme of School of Schools with our own emphasis: a lab of labs. In other words, working with the Bilkent Media Archaeology Lab (led by Andreas Treske) we organised a two day event that performed a lab in as a method to investigate it as a assemblage of methods, techniques, affordances of the lab in an urban environment and in the context of Istanbul, a city with a long heritage of crafts, workshops, and design irreducible to a sanitized design thinking discourse.

Benefiting from the experience of Ege Berensel and Başak Altın we engaged in workshopping that included 8 mm found footage (home films) and motherboards (as a source of circuit bending and tinkering). While Ebruk Kurbak joined us to talk about her work in textiles, computing and material methodologies in speculative design, and Tuğçe Karatas shared her views as an independent curator, our special surprise guest was the local TV repair shop expert who gave us a two hour crash course into his work and electronics! The lab includes many kinds of expertise.

The workshop was also part of the research for #TheLabBook – online at What is a Media Lab?.

Andreas Treske’s opening words, together with Björk’s poetic exploration of the television.

Başak Altın and Ege Berensel, artists from Ankara, were part of the work. Here Basak narrating a short visual history of motherboards.

An unpicking of a video projector into its material-epistemic components, measurable as objects of interest, unfolding multiple levels of media archaeology. #OfficeTruisms

Labs as hands-on practice.

A short introduction to electronics – from the perspective of repairing televisions and other appliances.