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Pirouette Machines. Fluid Components embarks on an intimate visual essay on an alternative history of computer hardware in which minerals, cosmetics and fluids mingle in tactile experiments.
A lipstick converted into a strident sound generator resonates through toxic entanglements with one of its main historical ingredients: lead. Following a radioactive decay chain, lead ore or galena is found on our lips and in our early 20th-century technologies such as crystal radio demodulation frenzy.
This talk draws parallels between different types of hardware materialities and personal stories surrounding computing components in their use. Starting with the beauty industry, the talk serpents amongst toxic concoctions filled with heavy metals oscillating to become predecessors to the first transistors and their alternative fluidic siblings that use air and water instead of electricity.
Fluidics is a technology lost in history. To operate, it requires only simple fluid matter guided by natural phenomena. Much like its mineral counterpart: electronics, fluidics builds circuits for computing. This talk concludes by following the seductive forms that fluidic circuits assume, forms, that can reimagine the morphologies of our current electronic machines.