In Handmade Computer, hand-making circuits from discrete electronic components is a practice devoted to the history and craft of computation. The computer is not a neutral object for aesthetic contemplation. Instead, it is a site of contested politics, and of precarious life. It is a massively large and abstract machine that’s operating by the logic of the capitalism. When our lives are so profoundly affected by algorithms and programs, what are the acts of resistance or dissent that preserve our morality, our humanity? Read Handmade Computers on Avant for more.
1- Bit Computer
Building the 1 Bit Computer doesn’t yet show us how your laptop or smartphone actually work. Instead, it demonstrates how binary numbers and boolean logic can be configured to create more complex components. On their own these components aren’t capable of computing anything particularly useful, but a computer is said to be Turing complete if it includes all of them, at which point it has the extraordinary ability to carry out any possible computation.
1-Bit Computer Kit
Bit Shifter
4 Bit Finite State Machine
Random Access Memory
Classes
Open Circuit, Open City essay
Noise Collector
Pixel Pusher
Handmade Computer. Exhibition view. Objectology II: City of Makers at National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. 2015.