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decrystallization 2-day workshop with Ryan Jordan and Jonathan Kemp, London, May 27th - May 28th 2011
decrystallization began from the premise that while life itself starts from aperiodic crystals that encode infinite futures within a small number of atoms, the digital crystallization of the flesh by capital limits these futures to the point of exhaustion.
If computers and the minerals from which they are made are considered as equally crystalline, then their decrystallization is only possible through the introduction of vigorous and noisy positive feedback loops.
In Day One of the workshop participants destroyed laptop boards/components to recover some of their component minerals including copper/gold/silver through executing various volatile chemical processes. Although activities like these are often scaled to consolidate capital on Day Two the workshop participants playfully repurposed the recovered minerals in novel arrays for the final nights salon event of gold/silver drinks and lo-no amp performances by the participants and invited guests.
Day One
Destroying computer boards
Using Aqua Regia (nitric/hydrochloric acid mix) to recover gold from pcbs
Using Electrolysis to recover gold from pins and connectors
Using hydrochloric acid/chlorine bleach + sodium metabisulphite to recover gold from black electrolytic residues
Using nitric acid to recover gold from cpus
Day Two
Redoxing silver from cpus in nitric acid with iron
Constructing/testing coherers made from different metal filings
Making/testing crude semi-conductor oscillators from copper
Re-purposing gold and silver to make colloidal drinks
Evening salon of lo-no amp performances from re-purposed metals/minerals made in workshop
selected large images documentation
all images by Nihal Yesil, Martin Howse, and Fabianne Borges
