Abstract 

Keywords: Fluid processor design, ecological computing, Informed Matter, discursive Design, Environmental Aesthetics, Sustainability.

This paper proposes ways of designing processor like devices operating with nothing else than natural flow of water to execute basic physical computing. Such types of fluid processors carry the potential to form the fundament of future fluid computing devices allowing for complex forms of ecological computing integrated directly into our environment. The proposed design works on natural principles of physics, uses no electricity at all, lasts almost forever and can literally be thrown around. That might sound like a radical, game- as well as life changing form of computing. And it will be. If we up-engineer the many and proven designs of old mechanical, analogue and physical ways of doing computing. So, what is the solution? Future and emerging computers will be carved out of and into stone. Their ornamental design will be more than environmental aesthetics, it will enable physical principles known from fluid and liquid dynamics to interface and interact with our world in multiple and –for now- speculative ways.

• Stahl Stenslie, Norway/Denmark, artist, curator and researcher in experimental media arts. His aesthetic focus is on that what challenges ordinary ways of perceiving the world. Through his practice he asks the questions we tend to avoid – or where the answers lie in the shadows of existence. Keywords of his practice are somaesthetics, unstable media, transgression and numinousness. The technological focus in his works is on the art of the recently possible – such as i) panhaptic communication on Smartphones, ii) somatic and immersive soundspaces, and iii) design of functional and lethal art. Starting as Head of PNEK (Production Network for Electronic Art), Norway in the fall. He has a PhD on Touch and Technologies from The School of Architecture and Design, Oslo, Norway. Currently he is teaching and researching as a professor in Art & Technology (opplevelsesteknologi) at Aalborg University, Denmark.  art.aau.dk   pnek.org

Full text (PDF) p. 196-201