Recomposing E-waste

Recomposing E-Waste introduces circular strategies to sound artists and designers working with digital music instruments (DMIs) such as desktop synthesizers, small keyboards and controllers, and experimental hardware and software for sound art and music production. It explores and documents the re-purposing of obsolete smartphones, transforming them into fully working DMIs that can be used to create new sound works and music. The target groups are artists, designers and musicians working with sound and digital technology who are looking for ways to reinvent their practice in sustainable ways, depending less on the latest ICT equipment. The research is designed to address the goal number 3, “Extending product life”, of the National Circular Economy Programme 2023-2030 (Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management 2023).
Waag Futurelab and Willem de Kooning Academy (Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, RUAS) will collaborate with Codarts University of the Arts, postmarketOS, Fairphone, ThePhoneLab and FIBER Foundation to develop a prototype DMI made entirely from obsolete smartphones and other repurposed materials. The DMI will be used to teach, validate and disseminate innovative artistic and design research strategies that provide cultural practitioners with training in digital tools, know-how, and a conceptual framework to combine creativity with circularity. It will exemplify how to increase the functional lifespan of mobile devices through reverse-engineering and repurposing, reducing thereby the resource use and waste that often accompanies digital cultural production.
The outcomes of the research will equip creatives with practical strategies to resist planned obsolescence, the market strategy the ICT industry deploys to increase the sales of newer devices and make still-working hardware seemingly useless. This will enable artists to play a guiding role in reshaping our society’s relationship with digital devices, not only on a symbolic but also on a functional and material level.