Materializing a more-than-human Internet of Things

Birgit Bachler / New Zealand
Victoria University of Wellington
birgit.bachler@vuw.ac.nz

“Materializing a more-than-human Internet of Things” is the PhD research of media artist and designer Birgit Bachler at the school of design, Victoria University of Wellington.

While the buzz term 'Internet of Things' has mainly developed around human, market and technology driven concerns, this research experiments with methods for creatively engaging the often marginalized and unheard voices of more-than-human communities around local wellington urban waterways as stakeholders and co-designer of an Internet of Things.

In a series of workshops, participants are invited to explore local waterways from a more-than-human perspective and walking the visible and hidden paths of local streams, which are often culverted and piper underground. By carrying a variety of electronic sensors, including audio, video, GPS, humidity, luminosity, temperature, flow, etc. Participants contribute to building multisensory cartographies for designing localized IoT contexts. This immersive walk aims to collaboratively create experimental prototypes for digital networks DIY electronic devices as artistic interventions, to imagine novel ways of (re)connecting with local Wellington waters and their more-than-human ecosystem.

This talk addresses challenges of searching for methods to include the creativity of more-than-human communities into the design process of a grassroots Internet of Things.