+C (2005)
My work combines conductive materials and craft techniques, developing new styles of building electronics that emphasize materiality and process. To situate my work I often consider a scenario in which building electronics has become common everyday practice. In this scenario the electronics we use and rely on, are goods that we make for ourselves and in doing so we not only determine how these devices look, we also decide what they can do and how they do it. As we begin to live in a world of electronic diversity, the kinds of electronics we surround ourselves with are unique and expressive of our individual and cultural needs and desires.
My work not only speculates with these ideas, but also takes steps towards achieving such an electronic diversity in which personal technologies exist. I research and develop new ways of building electronics, create working prototypes to demonstrate by example the kinds of electronic artifacts we might build, and a significant part of my work goes into documenting and disseminating these techniques so that they can be applied by others.
I received a B.Sc. in Industrial Design from the University for Art and Industrial Design Linz and an M.Sc. in Media Arts and Sciences from the MIT Media Lab, where I was a student in the High-Low Tech research group. Since 2006 I’ve been collaborating with Mika Satomi, forming the collective KOBAKANT. In 2009, as research fellows at the Distance Lab in Scotland, KOBAKANT published the website titled How To Get What You Want, where we share our textile sensor designs and approach to E-Textiles.