The aerial frequencies of the urban space are congested with transmissions - radio transmissions that will be orchestrated into a marching symphony of noise. An insurgency of 20 players holding wooden guns outfitted with a variety of electronics from radios to chirping circuit boards to magnetic field detectors will march from Siegessäule to Haus der Kulturen der Welt. This noise march enacted by 20 players will be one section of the Moving Forest collaboration that will take place February 1st as part of transmediale.08: CONSPIRE...
Examples of two electronic boards mounted onto the guns, on the left a pocket radio and on the right an original board designed for the guns with speaker, 5 LEDs and LCD, full description below.
Video stills from Radio Gun Revolt, Berlin, February 1st 2008:
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I am creating a series of weapons for emotional comfort that will be presented on the street and exchanged with pedestrians through barter. The weapons are to scale AK47s, Uzis and small Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs). The AK47s and Uzis are hand-crafted from wood and the IEDs are made from various consumer products. Each weapon contains an embedded electronic circuit that includes a micro-controller, a series of LEDs (green, blue, yellow, orange and red), an LCD display and a potentiometer for user control.
I will present the weapons on the street as if I were a street vendor. However, rather than selling the weapons, I will exchange it for something personal. Pedestrians may exchange a physical object or may create an audio or video recording to leave behind a memory, observation or thought concerning the current state of the world.
Owners of a comfort weapon use the weapon to help with psychological coping of current events. Each day the weapon owner sets the weapon to one of the sensibility levels - LOW (green), GUARDED (blue), ELEVATED (yellow), HIGH (orange), or SEVERE (red). Each setting will trigger a philosophical phrase randomly chosen from a depository of phrases used by leaders at times of war and peace. These phrases are designed to help the individual proceed through the day. These comfort weapons are designed to act as personal therapy devices for U.S. citizens suffering from a sense of guilt due to the low-level war maintained by our government that helps sustain our economy.
I have created the electronic circuit for the weapons and I have created one prototype for each weapon. At the moment the electronic circuits are controlled by a potentiometer, but I may switch to a grip sensor. Also, I have built the circuit around the Parallax Basic 2 micro-controller, which is expensive, so at the moment I am rebuilding it using a Pic micro-controller. These are technical changes that will allow me to produce multiples of each weapon. I hope to produce ten to fifteen copies of each weapon. The number of weapons is largely based on funding. The creation of multiples is necessary for street display and exchange. The presentation and distribution of the weapons is integral to the work. This website will will present detailed instruction on how to build a comfort weapon, once the project launches. The instructions will include a schematic for the circuit, links to where to buy parts and illustrated templates to construct the body of the weapons. After all, many more US citizens are likely to need such a coping device as the United States enters it's fifth year of war and over 300,000 Iraqis have been killed and over 3200 US troops have died.
Below are current prototypes for the comfort weapons:
Unfinished AK 47 with circuit and LCD screen sitting where it will be embedded into the wooden body
Initial test circuit on BS2 learning board
Second test circuit on bread board
Final circuit that will fit into a hollowed out section of the weapons.
First IED prototype using a Cafe Busto can
Uzi prototype with circuit and LCD placed where it will be embedded into the weapon
Example of finished wooden weapon without circuit and LCD
