From BlueMelon

Events

02-02-2008 and 03-02-2008	BlueSense workshop held for the DATA Group in Dublin.
26-11-2007 and 27-11-2007	BlueSense workshop at Ecole Superieure des arts Decoratifs.
20-2-2007	BlueSense workshop at the Urban Art School Oostende (Belgium).
17-2-2005	BlueSense workshop held at the Frank Mohr Institute.

E-Waste

Introduction

The E-Waste workshops are the result of a collaboration between the Artist Benjamin Gaulon (aka Recyclism) and the electronics company Blue Melon v.o.f. The partners would like to help artists and students to create interactive media and interactive environments. While Ben’s interactive projects demonstrate the concept of recyclism, the products of Blue Melon focus on creating tools for artists.

• Download the workshop proposal: EWaste 2.0 eng.pdf
• Refer to Recyclism for Ben Gaulon's personal projects.
• For questions or bookings, please contact us.

Recyclism

Most people who are familiar with the developments in the field of computer electronic may have heard of “Moore’s law”. Moore’s law dictates that the complexity of computer chips doubles each 18 months. As you can imagine this causes a rapid decrease of the value of existing electronics. The shadow side of such an enormous technological progress is the ‘production’ of endless amounts of electronic waste: e-waste. Furthermore although the economical value of written off electronics is zero, the electronic components themselves can still be useful in other contexts. Reusing electronic parts is thus interesting for two primary reasons: Economical and Ecological. The concept of E-Waste recycling tries to raise an ecological awareness by introducing a «cheap do it yourself» way of recycling.

Participants

Our workshops offer the participants to become familiar with basic hardware and software design while at the same time gain hands-on experience on a (short time frame) project. We will also provide the participants with information material about e-waste recycling. This workshop is open to participants of different backgrounds and no programming or electronic skills are required. The idea is to start from scratch and create a complete project, which will cover: the concept, the overall design, the electronic design and the interface programming with Max/Msp.

Tools

Since this work will be realized in a short time, we will provide the participants with the necessary tools. These tools include the sensor and actuator interfacing electronics for which we use the BlueSense boards. BlueSense allows one to wirelessly connect a large number of sensors and actuators to a computer. The sensors and actuators are interfaced with Max/Msp. Depending on the duration of the workshop an introduction to Max/Msp programming can be given as well.