Workshop and Lecture „Hacking Keyboards“

Implementation Period:

2. – 13.02.2024

Project:

This project with a workshop and lecture “Hacking Keyboards”, combines art and technology to showcase the Interface Cultures department’s research at the University of Arts Linz. The workshop consisted of transforming computer keyboards and mice into different interfaces for artistic expression in form of interactive installations and audio-visuals performances.

Theoretically, this workshop addressed to those who have concerns about interfaces, new media, interactivity, digital performance. Practically, this workshop focuses on basic circuit development, welding, the ensemble of interfaces for cultural expression, and the ability to interact with computers and software like musical or graphic open source like Pure Data or Processing.

The phases of the workshop were divided into; a) technical explanation (how to disassemble and alter the PCB of the computer keyboard) as well as the adaptation to other external sensors; b) theoretical explanation where a series of exemplified tactics for artistic creation were taught such as; creating analogies, anachronisms, paradoxes, dysfunctionalisations, changing scales, altering matter, altering the medium, adding layers, redesigning, sculpting, changing contexts, replacing objects, absurdity, mythologising, comparisons, sense of humour, adding feelings, experimenting with interfaces, performing interfaces.

Research was used as a method to understand the interface, to analyse its characteristics and its implications in political, social, economic, cultural and ecological terms. In didactic terms, the participants learned a new methodology, based on trial and error, disconnected from the need to solve problems, but rather on an intuitive and reinterpretative process in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). Finally, the physical part of the prototype was adapted to everyday objects such as staplers, or other tools found in the workshop. As a result, these interfaces are able to interact with computers and open source of software such as Pure Data or Processing, completing the process of creating the artistic interface.

As a final contribution, an adaptation of this workshop to one of the projects that the Suranaree University of Technology (SUT) was developing was made, (the manufacture of conductive ink) by designing an interactive image. This process was divided into the adaptation of a design to the creation of a circuit, to later be printed on a canvas. Once the design was ready to be sent to print, first in methacrylate sticker, which was stuck on the canvas frame where the conductive ink was applied, then the subsequent development of the interaction through microprocessors such as Arduino, or the implementation of the workshop „hacking keyboards”, proceeded.

In conclusion, both the CIA and IC departments share common interests which is the creation of interfaces to improve people’s lives from a functional, physical, and critical position. This project opens the links in the relationship between art and technology and opens the way for future collaborations between departments.

© SUT

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