The work produced within the narrow confines of the Hacklab, which teeters on the corner of Fenian St and Westland Row, lies somewhere in the hazy ether between art and science. It’s a space where despite (or perhaps because of) the technical anarchy that hacking meets DIY, as designers tinker with e-waste and now they’re taking to the high seas*.
The Hack the Oceans workshop is an experiment which pools artistic design with scientific theory to engage with and bring technological hardware to the ocean, explains the workshop’s curator Sebastian Muellauer, seated beside a jumble of cogs, spaghettied wires and disassembled telephones.
Technology, nature and human intervention occupy the undercurrents of the somewhat enigmatic Austrian’s work. Such streams of consciousness have led him to international ventures like the open source sailing drone, PROTEI and TAKU, a mobile lab for living, work and research.
Guided by this know-how, programme participants have been invited to construct a floating buoy which will boast integrated electronics to sense and interact with the predictably unpredictable temperament of the sea.
“It’s a low cost approach to making a buoy,” says Muellauer, “Basically it’s an open source project that will be documented and it will be open for people to take this idea and advance it. The way you build it should be accessible to people, using simple materials and techniques.”
Also assisting on the project is Hacklab founder Benjamin Gaulon, a French artist astute in circuit bending and modifying electronics for a myriad of additional purposes, or ‘hacking’ as he simply calls it. Much of his previous work has come under the moniker of Recyclism; installations and web-based projects focused on the limits of communication technologies, consumerism and the disposable nature of modern society.
It’s hoped that by the end of the three-day workshop, the group will have developed a cost-effective and easily manufactured prototype that could be used in future oceanic research.
The moveable buoy, made out of cheap and recycled materials (including the humble tyre), will be fitted with ‘hacked’ add-ons such as sensors, a wireless video camera and a customised megaphone, which will act as a hydrophone to analyse sound waves underwater.
The Hacklab water drone is nearly set for its maiden voyage at Dublin’s waterside. While at the moment the cylindrical mass of rubber and tech furnishings has to be controlled via a remote, work is still underway to include a pre-programmed ‘smartphone brain’, which would enable the user to plot way-points, allowing the equipment to navigate alone in open water.
From there the possibilities are endless, and as Muellauer mentions, the idea could at some point be used for environmental projects at sea. “The buoy could identify waste and measure plastic waste density. You could also get other data on solidity and phytoplankton concentration, which can lead to toxic algae plumes.”
Depending on how the first test run goes, the initiative might also open up avenues for economical unmanned exploration, rescue and chemical clean-ups, something which should keep this particular research afloat for some time.
*(Well, not quite – do Dublin’s Docklands count?).
