TechnoZombies

I explore the reappropriation of electronics by repurposing discarded devices. Borrowing from circuit bending, repair, and software tweaking techniques, the designer works with obsolete smartphones, strips them, and replaces components to graft them onto intergenerational hardware to create a network of intergenerational non-human multimedia 'zombie' performers. Each zombie has its own sound identity that ranges from simple, repetitive melodies to more complex, noisy, glitchy sounds. The objects are linked through web protocols for a connected interactive installation where sound, image, and sensor data respond to one another.

Alongside the group of devices, I make their process documentation and research accessible on my blog, sharing a log of experiments and a collection of resources. Following the idea that a device is "never dead," it opposes the fabricated opacity of systems and advocates for critical local resources through open source systems and independence through knowledge.