Category: Participants

The goal of this project by Staša Guček will be to create small, efficient, portable solar power plant from plants for all noise fans, hikers and hackers. P/i\Fcamp Solar Power Plant will be able to power a microcontroller, LED lights controlled by touch or maybe even a small noise machine, synth, theremin to noise away in the forest or on the mountain top.

P_lant (or Microbial) F_uel C_ell will be the source of electrical energy which will with boost converter power different preprogrammed microcontrollers or other devices.

First we will jump into the forest undergrowth of the valley where Soča River flows and gather moss, plants and suitable soil which will be our base for microbial fuel cell (MFC). Microbial fuel cell is one of the renewable energy alternatives that generates electricity through breakdown of organic matter. Plants always produce more sugars than they need and the excess is released through their roots into the soil and dissolve into protons and electrons, therefore MFC system with electrodes in the soil can catch the plant waste.

In the next step we will built simple low-power boost converter, therefore we will be able to get enough energy to power microcontrollers. Later we will have to show (off) our programming skills in Arduino, program microcontrollers (ATtiny) and make this plant-moss-light installation interactive, sensitive to touch or use it as a battery for our synths and other instruments.

Last part will be for optimisation of the P/i\Fcamp Solar Power Plant, so that it will be wearable and portable (and we can hike to nearest mountain and make some noise above 2.000 m.)

Bernhard Rasinger will join PIFcamp for the first time to come and play with modular synth circuits, oscilloscopes and lasers. There will be basic analogue oscilloscope training to visualise sounds and other electric signals in real time. Once you are acquainted and are all tangled up in a knot of cables, it is time to let the electrons fly. The dance of signals will take you on a journey, where sine- triangle and square waves are your travel companions.  The oscilloscope will tell you little stories about the circuits you are probing.

With the help of the oscilloscope you can visualise behaviour of electric architectures and enjoy the magical beauty of the electronic maze.

We will talk about obsolescence, alternative energy sources and phase modulation.

As a personal goal Bernhard will try to hack and modify existing circuits and improve the vocabulary of performance. There will be highly hypnotic audiovisual laser performances in complete darkness and laserjams.

In this two-part series of workshops participants will learn the art and science of DIY aerial mapping using kites: fly a kite, map an area of land, learn how to make a composite aerial photograph using MapKnitter.org, how to interpret and use aerial photos, and learn from examples of how DIY mapping has been used around the world by the Public Laboratory for Open Technology & Science community.

In Do-It-Yourself aerial mapping Part 1 we’ll learn how to use kites to gather aerial photographs over the surrounding area. We’ll use both an ordinary camera and a DIY Near Infrared (NIR) camera to capture data on plant health. No prior experience required!
What to bring: wind breaker as protection from the elements; sunglasses (we’ll be staring up at the sky a lot!); sunscreen and/or hat (that won’t fly away!); a water bottle; a notebook; a camera (on phone works) to document our adventure. Optional: an SD card to collect your own photos.

In Do-It-Yourself aerial mapping Part 2 (indoors) we will learn how to stitch together and interpret the images that we collected in Part 1 of the workshop. Bring your laptop.

Cindy Regalado is part of Public Laboratory for Open Technology & Science: a community that develops and applies open source tools to environmental exploration and investigation. As an open community of contributors from around the world, they collaboratively build a set of experimental open source tools and a network of local groups. They are creating an open data archive and free and open source software (from map making to spectral analysis). The platform publiclab.org helps them to build collaborations, practical knowledge, and provides organisational capacity.

So, we are told the best food grows on the shelves of superhiperultramega markets. And that eco/bio/organic is the best? Well, here’s the rest of the truth: we are literally surrounded by nutritionally very well rounded wild edibles, which can be prepared in any culinary way. But the rule is that the simplest is the best! This time we will leave cockroaches, larvae and other bugs behind (they are more or less edible by the way) and will concentrate on wild vegetables and herbs.

The aim of the node is to get closer to the plants, edible or not (all of the poisonous ones are very medicinal indeed, but there is a thin line between their medicinal and poisonous effect).

And, yes, did anybody mention Fly Agaric and Belladona? Some connections with the quite recent use of these Old World shamanic psychoactives in the region not that far away from the PIFcamp base will be mentioned, too.

The node is led (or at least he tries do it (t)his way) by Dario Cortese, an agricultural dissident and a proud dog pack leader. In his spare time he even wrote a few books on the subject.

Hannah Perner-Wilson and Mika Satomi from KOBAKANT will be joining PIFcamp this year to design and build “all-natural wearable technology”. Merging natural and technical materials and mechanisms to produce a new style of technological cladding – wearables that will protect us from the future.

We will hunt and gather nature’s treasures from the Soca valley and investigate how we can use these resources to build a new category of wearable technology. Technology inspired by the properties, qualities, textures, colours, rules and smells of the outdoors. These wearables will make us want to run out into the wild, to make noise and take action, to express our concerns through moving our bodies in all kinds of nature.

We will investigate, make, talk, choreograph and perform!

1) INVESTIGATE nature’s ability to make sound – both analog and digital

Explore following concepts with our hunted and gathered materials:
– Resistive and piezoresistive properties of materials
– Piezoelectric properties of materials (solar cell, temperature difference, physical strain….)
– Electromagnetic pickups (generating and amplifying small voltages)

Experiment with different sound circuits:
– Those from Bastl Instruments
– We will order some 555 timers and ATtinys
– Participants please bring stuff too!

Make things loud!
– How can we amplify these sounds so that they are heard? Especially outdoors.

2) MAKE the results of our investigation wearable

– Design wearables so that we can make sound with the movements of our bodies
– Make these designs durable so that they can be worn and performed

3) TALK about nature, human nature, technology and the built environment

We will gather around the fire to share and discuss:
– What is nature, what is natural?
– How are humans and nature intertwined?
– What do we want to make noise about?
– Who are we performing for?

Some proposed texts for reading:
Donna Haraway: Staying with The Trouble
Richard Sennett: Together

4) CHOREOGRAPH a performance (a ritual, a protest, a march, a dance, a game, a movement…)

Any choreographers and performers at PIFcamp? We would love your help and input on this part!

5) PERFORM on the last day of PIFcamp

FAQ:

Q: Who can join this node?
A: You must hunt and gather, learn and share. Then you may join.

Q: What do you mean by “natural”?
A: Good question. Lets discuss.

Q: What do you mean by “make noise and take action”?
A: We will discuss together what we want to make noise and take action on. This discussion will inform what costumes we build and the choreography of our performance.

Q: What materials and tools can I contribute to this project?
A: Bring yourselves, bring your bodies, bring circuits that make sound and materials that conduct. Bring your sewing needles and pocket knives. Your hiking boots and bathing suits.

Current Dictionary Definitions:

wearable – “an item that can be worn”
cladding – “a covering or coating on a structure or material”
technical – “of, involving, or concerned with applied and industrial sciences”
natural – “existing in or caused by nature; not made or caused by humankind”

More about the project.

Here is what Václav Peloušek from BASTL Instruments will be doing at this years PIFcamp!

Václav  will focus on trying to develop a new project / prototype on the spot together with other participants. He would provide already existing tools from the Bastl portfolio which can catalyse certain types of real world interfacing by providing simple translation interfaces from sensoric input into motoric, sound & light outputs. With such tools artificial ecosystems could be easily created and reconfigured. The general goal would be to not get stuck at the technological reality of inventing the tools but fully use the potential of existing modular synth tools which already provide the extreme flexibility. This would be an extension of topics he dealt with in his master thesis.

The general topic is using Control Voltages as an universal representation of anything in the world. Such voltage could be processed in many different ways by using a modular synth. This basically means analog computing.

He will also offer introductory course into analog computing with op-amps (operational amplifiers) and provide same basic insight into reading analog synth schematics.

Further his personal goal will be initiating more musical situations / jam sessions and developing new ways to play music together. 

Don’t forget to bring your instruments!

The Hacktivated Reactive Network will take on signals from the real world environment of the PIFcamp and its participants, react to them trough live-coded scripts and feed them back to the camp trough screens and kinetic sculptures. The physical input and output devices speaking the OSC protocol will connect trough Noise Make-up Language (NML), a web livecoding bridge, and form a living, pulsating and growing network inhabiting the camp site, its computers and browsers, not to mention the minds and bodies of campers.

Continuing from last year’s camp, we will be making more input and output modules based on ideas from kinetic sculpture, DIY and kids robotics, modular synthesizers and the beautiful natural surroundings. We will combine humble potentiometers, servo motors and microcontrollers, glue and sticks into abstract expression carriers capable of transforming gestures into numbers and back again. This year we will also try to develop good ways to use other projects sounds as inputs. Perhaps we’ll even manage to give the network a voice and sound. Join in!

Open Source Estrogen explores the various ways that estrogen performs a molecular colonization in our society, bodies, and ecosystems. Estrogen is the most ancient of sex hormones. Therefore the mutagenic effects of environmental (xeno) estrogens disrupt species across all animal taxa, including humans. In response to our collective mutagenesis (becoming alien), the project uses DIY/DIWO estrogen-hacking protocols as a way of detecting & extracting slow violence.

Open Source Estrogen is a project by Mary Maggic and Pippo Pruscha.