Modulating earth and sky: extended electronic circuits in the arts

Modulating earth and sky: Extended electronic circuits in the arts investigates how electronic technology may be envisaged beyond its current form, extending material poetics and concepts of electronic circuits out into the larger environment in order to encapsulate broader ecological concerns. This practice-based creative research project peers deep within electronic components, as well as beyond the points where a device stops but the electrical circuit continues. This entails a joint examination of the materiality of electronics, as well as the physical conditions and interactions that give rise to electrical potential within the greater environment. In this way, concepts usually isolated to the fields of electrical engineering and Earth sciences are expanded outwards and given scope for wider artistic and philosophical engagement. Within the written thesis I employ an original theoretical framework, termed the extended circuit system, in which conventional engineering concepts are developed beyond their usual scope without undermining their existing function. This framework is informed and guided by two theorists: pioneering electronic composer, instrument inventor, and writer Daphne Oram, and French philosopher Gaston Bachelard. Three primary methods of research have been engaged: my own work and technical skills as an artist, research within the literature of the history of science and engineering, and the work of contemporary artists working with similar subject matter. The practical element of the research explores material essence of electronics through hand- making components, circuits, and power sources—employing craft as a means of identifying and re-examining otherwise heavily encoded technological objects. These works bear an appreciation of the resourcefulness and imagination inherent in these inventions, while also conscious of the accumulative environmental implications in regards to energy consumption, resource extraction, toxicity, and waste. Through the study of specific components, their material constituents, and their tangible connections, elements of the environment become firmly referenced within the visual language and physical objects of electronic technologies. What one may take from this is an engagement with technology that moves beyond mundane utility, and into something more profound and enduring, yet categorically dependent on the unique conditions of the Earth.

Grantor dc:publisher

UNSW, Sydney

Year dc:date

2018

Author dc:creator

• Morandini, Emily

• Poetics
• Electronics
• Environment
• Craft
• Energy
• Materials
• Contemporary art

Statement dc:rights

• open access
• CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
• free_to_read

Licence

• https://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2
• https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/au/

Language dc:language

EN

Identifier

https://doi.org/10.26190/unsworks/3694

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:unsworks.library.unsw.edu.au:1959.4/61942