Prototypes
With a view to reconsider current approaches to renewables and the so-called green transition, we worked with prototyping small scale forms of sustainable energy provision inspired by farming communities in Växjö, Sweden. Engaging as artists, designers and growers with questions of energy and agriculture has involved implicit challenges and an ongoing question of how to collectively build regenerative imaginaries that support ties across soils and damage narratives of the smooth continuity of energy. With questions in mind, our project explored how current energy paradigms could be both challenged and inspired by agroecology and regenerative agriculture’s core goal of not only maintaining, but reviving and enhancing the health, resilience and adaptability of local ecosystems and their communities.
Throughout the project, we have worked to treat seriously what it might mean to take principles and propositions for soil and ecosytem health as a model for exploring what alternative forms of energy research and prototyping might come into being. These are learn it with others prototpyes for collectively exploring propositions and principles of energy and agriculture. If you do try any of them out, please feel free to share your experiments and stories with us, we would be happy to learn of further iterations!
Feral Circuits
This low power synthesizer, introduced to us by energy art friend Ralf Schreiber, has been an important companion throughout the project, allowing us to test/hear/feel different electrical energies generated by our prototypes and environments. Instead of relying on multimeters and other standard numerical measuring devices (which are not so good at handling small, intermittent energies anyway), the feral circuits have given us a more embodied sense of electrical energy, and a palpale imaginary of how electronic circuits could be more alive/sensitive/ and part of an ecosystem.
Learn more about the circuit and how to make your own https://regenerative-energy-communities.org/feral-circuits
Calabash Speakers
Calabash, developed by the first materials scientists as sustainable containers thousands of years ago in Southern Africa, turn out to be wonderfully shaped for resonance and amplifying sound. We grew some in our studio (which we had to hand pollinate, pictured here), as well as harvesting some gourds from our neighbours on the farm. Then we fitted in some e-waste speakers and a little low energy amplifier. Charged by solar, it became a lovely boombox to take with us on adventures. We also made one powered by USB, with bluetooth connection.
XMPP x REC
In REC we resisted posting photos onto the dominant platform capitalist photo sharing sites of the present. These platforms share in similarly damaging approaches as those of dominant actors in energy and agriculture (e.g., unsustainable practices of extraction and energy use), and we decided to try to hold to more regenerative propositions in our approaches to uses of technology in our work.
This lead us to discussing what horizons and forms regenerative media practices might take. For our Energy Giveaway at the Humuspunk Library exhibition, we reached out to Cristina Cochier of the varia collective to see if they could build a low energy regenerative media interface for posting photos to and we can now share the results, which are available to follow here: REC live! (“XMPP x REC”)
Hydroponics Stack
Modular, slip-cast ceramic hydroponics stack
temperature changing energy harvester
Peltier - soil - air - sun -- polarity reversal day and night
Sporezilla
Full keg of Reishi liquid spawn ON TAP distributing community biomaterials projects and healthy teas!
Poems to be played by a micro wind turbine
together
(¯`·..·(¯`·..· thank you ·..·´¯)·..·´¯)
anti-state
thank you
don't forget to breathe
take this energy
smile ⎦˚◡˚⎣
wind for you and me (‾▿‾) (‾▿‾) (‾▿‾)
windmills are peaceful, windmills are revolutionary
(¯`·..·(¯`·..· SPINNY! ·..·´¯)·..·´¯)
▂▃▅▇█▓▒░۩۞۩ wind is earth movements and light, the sun's migrating breath ۩۞۩░▒▓█▇▅▃▂
wind is invisible. we can only see wind when it's moving
i used to blow dandelions. i used to smoke
the sand from the Sahara blew all the way to Växjö last year...
E-waste Microscope Webcams
Another nice tool which allowed us to explore our surroundings with greater awareness was a microscope, allowing for reconsideing our place in the ecosystems we are part of. We built 2 of our own, made from webcams found in the trash, using the protocol developed by Hackteria. You can find their documentation here https://hackteria.org/wiki/DIY_microscopy
The one we made of course had a 'disco mode', with a colour-changing blinky LED.
Seed Turbines
Acorn end and winged seeds delicately built into micro wind turbines using small motors from the e-waste bin as generators. Mathilde pretends to be the wind. Click to see the gif!
Spore catapult
Trebuchet for dispersing oyster mushroom spores and regenerate heavy metal full soil! Made during the earthweek carpark-into-garden day. Click for gif.
Electromagnetic micro energy harvesters
AKA swayie-swayie; a series of experiments with magnets and copper coils... trees swaying in the breeze generating electricity...
Gravity Battery Disco Ball
When intermittent energy is available, a motor is powered and pulls up a weight (in this case it was a large crystal which just broke off the string so I'm turning it manually here). When we want to use the stored energy, the crystal slowly drops to the ground, turning the turbine and turning on a disco ball. Click for gif!
Crystal Energy
piezoelectricity experiments
Wetlab Witches' Biolab
Several final year students from the Design+Change course are working with fungi for their degree projects; Betyul and Mathilde with plastic-decomposing fungi and related imaginaries, and Smaranda with fungi+witchcraft. And over here at the agri-energy lab, Daniel has been developing methods for growing mycelium materials, and I'm really interested in all the ways microorganisms intersect with energy and agriculture (soil microbiomes, phyto-pathogenic fungi, mycorrhizal fungi, bacterial and myco remediation, fermentation, electrogenesis). Developing DIY tools to know what is going on in the soil and the water are also super important for small scale off-grid farmers. So, it's obvious that we need to turn the little side room of our studio into a wetlab! This idea came from some great discussions at an OpenLab, and the students and I made plans to start constructing. Our strategy for infrastructuring is to be able to start working ASAP, and then to continue to build and improve on it over time.
Step 1.
Making lists of what we want, pooling our knowledge of what infrastructure we would need, from our different project angles and prior experience. We talk about safety! Microbes are all around us, but we have to be careful about environmental health (incl humans ofc). Mathilde also sent the How to Lab PDF from CLEAR Labs, who are doing such amazing work. We are reading through this to learn about how they conduct and maintain a decolonial, feminist lab and working environment.
Step 2.
Meet on a Saturday and go looking for Trash! We were doing legal dumpster diving, so for instance at the studio space they are doing renovations, and at the materials workshop at LNU, as well as things we have collected from the freeshop, some jars from the food lab, home recycling... Collecting wood shavings from the wood workshop trash.. Nice pieces of glass for sterile table surfaces, discarded plastic curtain... Some specific Infrastructure we worked on included a Laminar Flow Cabinet, incubator / refrigerator and webcam microscope.
