Haptic City Workshop

Artemis Papageorgiou, Afroditi Psarra

We propose a Haptic City workshop for the city of Bergen. The aim of the workshop is to build a prototype of an embroidered responsive map of the city, together with a group of individuals interested in producing an artwork about their city. The participants will engage in the process of prototyping and building DIY electronics on textiles using various components – LEDs, resistors, sensors, buttons, buzzers, and conductive materials, in order to learn how to trigger a primitive digital soundscape with 8-bit sounds. They will be handed a printed part of the city map and taught how to create an interactive sound pattern, acquiring skills in programming, physical interaction design and sound experimentation. Through the codification of city elements, personal observations and open discussions we will decide together upon the kind of interactions we wish to integrate in the map and how to trigger sound and light through them. At the end of the workshop the participants will be familiar with the concepts of electronic textiles and soft-circuits, but also will recognise a new layer of semiotics and mapped interactions within the city fabric. We hope that this map will become a starting point for further public discussions about the city.The workshop will be divided in four four-hour sessions, led by myself and Afroditi Psarra.

In the first session we will talk about the city and take the time to describe the important elements in different city areas, how we imagine them change in the future, what kind of interactions and symbolisms we wish to add. We will be introduced to Arduino and to e-textiles. In the next session we will build schematics with all our sensors and will sew the electronics on the circuits. In the third session we will focus on programming the circuits. In the last session will focus on connecting the circuits and finishing the overall programming and debugging of the map.

Calendar
First session: Discussion about the city of Bergen – Introduction to e-textiles and embroidery techniques – Introduction to Arduino

Second session: Designing the circuit and sewing electronics on fabric

Third session: Programming the circuitFourth session: Connecting the different circuits and completing the map-debugging