Electric marvels in the age of enlightenment https://wellcomecollection.org/articles/XN0zbhAAAPDHoFl2
The Founding Spark: Benjamin Franklin and Medical Electricity. https://news.weill.cornell.edu/news/2006/06/the-founding-spark-benjamin-franklin-and-medical-electricity
What Happens If You Apply Electricity to the Brain of a Corpse? https://www.wired.com/2014/05/what-happens-if-you-apply-electricity-to-the-brain-of-a-corpse/
Lauffen to Frankfurt 1891 - The beginning of modern electric power in the world https://edisontechcenter.org/LauffenFrankfurt.html
About metaphors
HANS BLUMENBERG: QUELLEN, STRÖME, EISBERGE: Eine Metapher bricht schon mal zusammen https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/buecher/rezensionen/sachbuch/hans-blumenberg-quellen-stroeme-eisberge-eine-metapher-bricht-schon-mal-zusammen-11864463-p2.htm
Der Geist ist sich selbst voraus https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/der-geist-ist-sich-selbst-voraus-100.html
2023-03-29
Visual References
Electricity: condenser jars, an electro-static generator, and a vase with flowers. Gouache painting.
Lelong, Paul, active approximately 1820
https://wellcomecollection.org/works/wm8ne5nu
Der elektrische Kuss ("venus electrificata"), Wittenberg, 1744
https://sciencev1.orf.at/science/news/146903.html
https://blog.pfalzwerke-gruppe.de/energiephaenomene_a478461
2023-03-17
2023-02-03
2023-01-31
Grid 02
Experiment mit ca. 35 kV aus dem ZVS Netzteil auf flexiblem Prototyping Board, mit einem 100 pF Keramikcap. Der Abstand von HS Anode + Kathode ist gerade so weit, dass es nur selten von allein zum Lichtbogen kommt, aber dieser manuell mit einem Stück Kupfertape ausgelöst werden kann.
2023-01-31
Manhattan Geometry / Taxicab Geometry
A taxicab geometry or a Manhattan geometry is a geometry whose usual distance function or metric of Euclidean geometry is replaced by a new metric in which the distance between two points is the sum of the absolute differences of their Cartesian coordinates. The taxicab metric is also known as rectilinear distance, L1 distance, L1 distance or ℓ 1
\ell _{1} norm (see Lp space), snake distance, city block distance, Manhattan distance or Manhattan length. The latter names refer to the rectilinear street layout on the island of Manhattan, where the shortest path a taxi travels between two points is the sum of the absolute values of distances that it travels on avenues and on streets.
(green = Euclidean distance / blue = Manhattan distance)
Manhattan Wiring
Manhattan wiring (also known as right-angle wiring) is a technique for laying out circuits in computer engineering. Inputs to a circuit (specifically, the interconnects from the inputs) are aligned into a grid, and the circuit "taps" (connects to) them perpendicularly. This may be done either virtually or physically. That is, it may be shown this way only in the documentation and the actual circuit may look nothing like that; or it may be laid out that way on the physical chip. Typically, separate lanes are used for the inverted inputs and are tapped separately.
2023-01-31
Ein paar prompts mit Dall-e 2
"a new media electronic art installation based on a lose grid with electric sparks"
"an installation with electric sparks in rectangular movement in a small grid like a neural network"
"a new media art electronic installation that implements a neural network in physical space with sparks, photorealistic "
2023-01-31
Zeichnungen und ein erstes (shitty) Modell
2023-01-30
Grid 01
Test mit viereckigem Kupfertape im Raster.
Zuvor hat sich statische Ladung mit der Wimshurst- / Influenzmaschine bewegt sich nur über Sprühentladung, anstelle von Lichtbogen, aufgrund der viereckigen Form der Kupferquadrate. Hochspannung mit dem ZVS-Netzteil hat allerdings genug Stromstärke, um eine Funkenstrecke zu erzeugen.
2023-01-23
Hello World! (of High Voltage)
Die Wimshurst- / Influenz-Maschine scheint das Hello World der Hochspannung zu sein. Mit einem Baukasten für Kinder mache ich damit ein paar erste Versuche.
Abstract
This artistic research study investigates, critiques and proposes different ways of relating to electricity. It engages with how the production, distribution and consumption of electric energy has been theorized as based on grid and network infrastructures, enabling and stabilizing Western modern cultures, and following a capitalist and colonial logic of abstraction, extraction and destruction. Furthermore, this study connects to the Aboriginal concept of energy intimacy by tracing how the abstraction and structural obfuscation of electricity through grids and networks into an impersonal and intangible commodity lacks intimacy, and therefore responsibility. By coupling this theoretical engagement with the results of a series of experiments that attempt to create intimate electric moments and experiences, this study speculates about what changes and practices are needed to actually realize an intimate electricity.
Content
Introduction.
Chapter 1. The economic situation of electricity: Grids and nets are the structures of production/distribution of electricity as a commodity
Chapter 2. Electricity itself. Electricity as an enchanting metaphoric, just as a well as it is itself a yearning poetic phenomenona that binds energies and materials, matter and information, as well as makes subjectivities.
Chapter 3. Energy Intimacy
Chapter 4. Towards an intimate Electricity (Art work description + integration of practical experiment into answering the research question)
Results + conclusion
References
Imre Szeman, Jennifer Wenzel, and Patricia Yaeger: "Fueling Culture. 101 Words for Energy and Environment" (2017)
Douglas Kahn: "Energies in the Arts" (2019)
"Rasterfahndung: das Raster in der Kunst nach 1945"
Barad, Karen: "TransMaterialities: Trans*/Matter/Realities and Queer Political Imaginings" in "More-than-Human" (2021)
Faraday, Michael: "Experimental Researches In Electricity Vol. 1" (London, 1839)
Shelly, Mary: "Frankenstein" (1818)
Clutter / Outdated:
This artistic work is part of an investigation into the history of electricity (in junction with the history of the grid? - or the different means of relating to electricity - fascination, imagination, control, exploitation, etc.)
Or:
This work is the result of an investigation of how electricity has been historically framed through different lenses - and in turn enacts a framework that displays electricity going through this network of varying degrees of recognized material contingencies, intelligences and desires.
The way electricity has been "tamed" by the mains electricity grid ("Stromnetz" in German) is one such node in this network of varying ways to relate to electricity. Part of this work is also an attempt to subvert this relation of control over the electricity towards a new interpretation of the grid that displays a certain kind of openness of the ways that current flows through it.
Stages / Neurons in this research + work
1839: "The beautiful flash of light attending the discharge of common electricity is well-known." (Faraday 1839)
... More stages / neurons ...
2021: "Lightning is an energizing play of a desiring field. Its tortuous path is an enlivening exploration of possible connections. Not a trail from the heavens to the ground but an electrifying yearning for connection that precedes this and that, here and there, now and then." (Barad 2021)
Possible titles
Nervous System / Decentralized Nervous System
A neural history of electricity and material intelligence
A rhizom that actually bites
Along sparking phenomenon, neural networks, material intelligence, a rhizomatic history of electricity unfolds (wtf)
References
On electricity / materiality:
Barad, Karen: "TransMaterialities: Trans*/Matter/Realities and Queer Political Imaginings" in "More-than-Human" (2021)
Faraday, Michael: "Experimental Researches In Electricity Vol. 1" (London, 1839)
Shelly, Mary: "Frankenstein" (1818)
On the grid:
"Rasterfahndung: das Raster in der Kunst nach 1945"
Electricity: condenser jars, an electro-static generator, and a vase with flowers. Gouache painting.
Lelong, Paul, active approximately 1820
https://wellcomecollection.org/works/wm8ne5nu
