In this workshop we will sketch, doodle, draw, inscribe, engineer and overall un/determine traces on copper boards for them to become places where high voltage spark gaps can occur.
The introduction for the workshop will consist of a brief (not so objective, and rather poetic) historical account of pre-modern electricity, a rough and incomplete overview of contemporary electric arts, and an introduction to a self-built high voltage generator, inspired by the 19th century influence machine design. The practical part is an invitation to draw unconventional traces on copper boards. This may take the shape of an alternative dogma of irrational trace routing, a quick doodle, a comic, a piece of electrify-able writing, … whatever you may come up with! By applying the drawings with an etch-resistive marker, in an etching bath we can then selectively remove the unwanted copper. This leaves us with an etched copper version of the inscribed drawing. Lastly, we can start experimenting with applying high voltage sparks to our copper drawings.
Which shapes let the high voltage dis/charge behave in which way? How far can 20 000 Volts „jump“ or arc across copper gaps? What unexpected poetics can we notice – or where are your drawings resonating with how the discharging sparks occur?
The participants acquire experience in a poetic engineering of high voltage circuit boards, as well as a feeling for how shape, material and energy may be nested and affected by one another. A main goal of the workshop is to develop a notion of electric energy that expands beyond mere fuel as „pure exergy“, and instead looks at electricity as a wildly expressive medium and phenomenon in itself.
! Must read: A note on safety
The amount of charge that accumulates in the capacitors is kept to a low level that is noticeable (through feeling, hearing and seeing), but under regular circumstances not dangerous. Nonetheless, I am not a health professional, so safety through risk-prevention and awareness will be very important in this workshop! If you have i.e. a pace-maker, a hearing-aid or any other kind of device that may be sensitive to electro-magnetic interference and put you at risk if that device fails, please let me know in advance. Then we can and need to plan additional safety measures.
PRACTICAL INFO:
-> WORKSHOP LANGUAGE: english
-> PRICE:
full with vegetarian lunch: 700,-
student discount: 500,-
version without lunch: minus 200,- (500/300)
-> LOCATION: 49.223147990914015, 16.649218702747817
-> RESERVATION: spolek@svitava.org
ABOUT TUTOR:
https://lotta-stoever.net/about
My name is Lotta Stöver (*1996) and I am currently based in Weimar/Bremen (Germany). I work as an artist in the fields of media, technologies and research.
My works engage with phenomena, energies and matters where they converse, disobey, transform, de/transition and mutate along with new technologies. Through processes of poetic engineering and experimental imaging methods, my practice poses research questions about data and the material world in an embedded and embodied manner. Those often involve experiments that materialize as interactive installations and kinetic sculptures, incorporating electronics, self-built machines and hand-written texts, both executable and readable. With my work I aim to break with the dominant narratives around our largely technologically-mediated social reality and try to enact alternative technological (and non-technological) immediacies.
From 2015 – 2023 I studied Digital Media at the University of the Arts Bremen (Germany). Besides my emerging art practice, I work as an artistic associate in the Media Arts program of the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar.
Projekt se uskutečňuje za finanční podpory statutárního města Brna a Ministerstva kultury ČR
