Designing without a future positions prototyping as a negotiation with histories of media rather than as a speculation about possible futures. It also recognizes how many of the technologies we remake are no longer accessible and likely never will be again: they are broken, lost, missing, or not in circulation. Remaking them is thus about the contingencies of experience and interpretation, not ideal forms or designs.

Thanks to Daniela Rosner for feedback on drafts of this publication. A photograph of the cover is above.

Post by Tiffany Chan, attached to the KitsForCulture and EarlyMagneticRecording projects, with the news tag. Featured image care of Interactions. 

To imitate Poulsen’s early experiments, we constructed a trolley and modelled the exteriors of a telephone receiver and transmitter. Next, we remade and tested various telephone parts to mimic Poulsen’s use of both a transmitter for magnetizing piano wire and a receiver for playback. Poulsen relied on existing telephone parts in his experiments. As such, we sourced receivers and transmitters available to him at the time (e.g., we ordered a few different Kellogg telephone parts from 1901).

Kellogg Transmitter and Receiver (photograph by Danielle Morgan)

To test the transmitter, we created a circuit using the transmitter, an electromagnet, and a battery, as described in Marvin Camras’s 1988 account of Poulsen’s experiment. Unfortunately, during our first few attempts, the transmitter would not magnetize the wire. To gain a better understanding of the transmitter and receiver, we experimented with building them from scratch. We turned to resources that were written for hobbyists and tinkerers, including Old-Time Telephones: Technology, Restoration, and Repair, by Ralph O. Meyer, and Bob’s Old Phones, an online resource compiled by antique phone enthusiast, Bob Estreich.

We began by building a simple pencil carbon transmitter, similar to several of the earliest transmitter designs. This version would transmit sound into a set of headphones or a speaker, but it was not nearly strong enough to magnetize the piano wire. Next, we tried a basic carbon granule transmitter, following Henry Hunnings’s 1878 design (Meyer, 16). Early transmitter patents relied on only one point of contact between electrodes, thus limiting capacity. In contrast, Hunnings’s use of carbon granules between the two electrodes ensured multiple points of contact and increased capacity.

Hunnings’s transmitter still wasn’t reliable, since the carbon dust particles tended to pack together with use. In 1886, Edison improved Hunnings’s design by replacing the carbon dust with carbonized hard coal, since it was less prone to packing (Meyer, 17). We attempted making our own simple carbon granule transmitter, which was also far from effective. Much like our pencil carbon transmitter, it was simply not strong enough to impress sound onto piano wire.

Inside a Kellogg Transmitter (photograph by Danielle Morgan)

In 1890, Bell engineer Anthony White introduced the solid-back transmitter. This design became the transmitter of choice for manufacturers until the 1930s (Meyer, 18). More than likely, this transmitter would have been the kind Poulsen used for his magnetic recording experiment. It was much more difficult for us to replicate, since it was more complex and many of the parts are now very difficult to source. However, having gained a basic understanding of the transmitter’s design, we decided to restore the solid-back transmitter we already had at our disposal: we replaced all the copper wiring, cleaned out the dust inhibiting capacity, replaced screws to tighten the grips on the diaphragm, and repaired the plastic cover, which keeps the carbon granules in place. With this approach, we were able to magnetize sections of the wire by shouting into the transmitter as we ran the electromagnet along the wire. We were also able to test for imprinted magnetic fields by dabbing iron fillings along the wire to see where they would cling.

Iron Filings Clinging to Recording on Wire (photograph by Danielle Morgan)

Once we knew that the wire had been magnetized, we attempted to play back the sound by running the electromagnet along the wire again, this time connected to the telephone receiver. We occasionally heard small clicks when we ran the electromagnet over heavily magnetized sections, but the sound was hardly high fidelity.

In the Magnetic Recording Handbook, Camras states, “if only the telegraphone had given loud, clear, reliable sound, it would have met with public acceptance. But the reproduction was weak and spotty” (6). Presumably, Poulsen’s initial experiment with playback would have been even weaker and less reliable than playback on a telegraphone (a device he exhibited in 1900). Even so, we are pleased with our success in magnetizing the wire and prototyping the recording trolley. What’s more, we recognize the impossibility of remaining true to Poulsen’s first experiments, and the contingencies of the recording process made us even more aware of differences over time. We weren’t there, but we better understand there now.

Post by Katherine Goertz, Danielle Morgan, and Jentery Sayers, attached to the KitsForCulture and Makerspace projects, with the fabrication tag. Images for this post care of Danielle Morgan. Research based on “Making the Perfect Record” (published in American Literature).

Poulsen’s early magnetic recording experiment (illustrated by Marvin Camras)

To test and share our research, we held our Jacob: Recording on Wire exhibit at the UVic’s Audain Gallery a few weeks ago. Throughout the week, we conducted a series of demonstrations in the gallery and encouraged participants to imitate the experiment by impressing their voices on the piano wire.

Wall-mounted phone in the Jacob exhibit (image care of Danielle Morgan)

Because Poulsen used demanufactured telephone parts to record the name, “Jacob,” repeatedly on wire, we mounted a telephone box on the back wall of the gallery. The box was immediately visible when you entered the room. When visitors picked up the receiver, an audio guide provided historical details and context, with playback via a microcontroller, MP3 audio decoder chip, and amplifier hidden inside the box.  

Trolley and wire recordings in the Jacob exhibit (image care of Danielle Morgan)

The wire strung diagonally on the left side of the room allowed participants to imitate Poulsen’s method of recording on piano wire.

Instructional photos and component parts in the Jacob exhibit (image care of Danielle Morgan)

On the wall behind this wire, we hung a series of seven instructional photographs and provided participants with the parts they would need to imitate the experiment. Participants were able to experiment with recording on the wire by hooking up provided telephone parts to the electromagnet, running alongside the trolley while speaking into the transmitter or listening to the receiver, testing their recording with iron filings, and wiping the wire clean with a permanent magnet.

Participant photographing their filings and impression on piano wire (image care of Danielle Morgan)

The wire on the right side of the room was strung parallel to the ground. Throughout the week, a trolley progressively moved from one side of the room to the other as participants impressed and left their voice on the wire for the remainder of the exhibit. Beside each recording, an attached tag described the content stored on each section of the wire.

Post by Danielle Morgan, attached to the KitsForCulture project, with the fabrication, physcomp, and exhibits tags. Images for this post care of Danielle Morgan and Marvin Camras. Post based on research by Katherine Goertz, Danielle Morgan, Victoria Murawski, and Jentery Sayers (including “Making the Perfect Record”), with contributions from Teddie Brock and Tiffany Chan.

We imitated this experiment and will be exhibiting it on the UVic campus at the Audain Gallery, in the Visual Arts Building, Tuesday, June 14th through Friday, June 17th.

We will be demonstrating the experiment three times that week: Tuesday, June 14th, at 12:30pm; Wednesday, June 15th, at 4:30pm; and Thursday, June 16th, at 4:30pm. Demonstrations will last approximately 30 minutes. If you have any questions about the exhibit, then please email maker@uvic.ca.

Full-size posters: version 1 | version 2

Exhibit by Katherine Goertz, Danielle Morgan, Victoria Murawski, and Jentery Sayers, with contributions from Teddie Brock and Tiffany Chan

Post by Danielle Morgan, attached to the KitsForCulture project, with the fabrication, news, and exhibits tags. Images and posters by Danielle Morgan.

Throughout this prototyping process, we’ve used a 3-D scanner (or structured-light scanner) to produce models for experimentation. For the skull stick-pin, we made and then scanned a wooden skull as a model for fabrication in acrylic. For the magnetic recording experiments, we scanned late-19th-century telephone receivers and transmitters. Using those scans, we reduced the 3-D models to 2-D parts that we cut with a laser and then assembled back into wooden iterations of the originals. For other projects, we are making casting moulds by splitting the digital scans in half and then either fabricating them or carving interiors with various CNC machines. We can then fill the moulds with an array of materials. This approach allows us to retain more nuanced surface features, including grooves or cracks. It also allows us to work with materials such as metals.

Unfortunately, the scanning process doesn’t always go as easily as planned. For instance, scanners such as ours (an LMI HDI 120) frequently face difficulties picking up smooth textures, including metal or plastic. As you can see in the image below, the initial scan saw almost nothing when we first scanned the telephone transmitter’s plastic casing.

One way to address this problem is to add texture by dusting the object with talcum powder, for example. If we are using a rotary table, then we also place the object on its side or at another angle. This way, the light hits it from a slightly different direction. As the image below suggests, I placed the transmitter on a piece of paper to add contrast. While this approach resulted in more angles, it also scanned the paper as though it were part of the transmitter. Since I didn’t want the paper to be part of my final scan, I selected and deleted the sections of the object that didn’t seem to belong. In the image, the section highlighted in yellow is about to be deleted. Moments such as this one remind us how 3-D scans aren’t exactly “copies” of originals. They are edited throughout the remediation process.

Software such as FlexScan3D (which we use often) also allows you to combine several partial scans to fill missing parts. However, in some cases the software will consistently miss the same spots on the object. In such situations, we use the software’s “fill” option, where you bridge specific sections to indicate where a wall should go. In the image below, I’ve placed several bridges across the midsection of the transmitter.

If the holes or occlusions prove too difficult, then we sacrifice some precision by applying the “smooth finish” function. While the object retains the same shape and most of its features, some intricate details are lost. Below, you can see a finalized version of the telephone transmitter where I applied a smooth finish.

By digitizing 3-D objects, we’re able to not only remake them in a variety of ways but also create files that allow others to access remediations of historical objects and then interact with them without concerns about damaging surfaces, forms, or composition.

Post by Katherine Goertz, attached to the KitsForCulture and Makerspace projects, with the fabrication tag. Images for this post care of Katherine Goertz and the MLab.

In the humanities, what are the settings of interpretation? How does design allow us to rethink the normalization of scenarios as well as “the user”? In this case, Sara Hendren’s work on accessible architecture is compelling.

How is interpretation embodied and situated in time and space? How does design help us attend to the particulars of situations, especially to the particulars that matter or make a difference? Here, we repeatedly drew from Karen Barad’s work on mattering and boundary-making practices.

What does a given design value or reify, and who does it exclude? Simone Browne’s recent work on surveillance technologies and practices is very informative here.

How is design also inquiry, or not simply an instrumental means to an end? Here, we considered work by Carl DiSalvo, Daniela Rosner, and Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby.

How are projects designed to be maintained and repaired over time? Which design methods frustrate “make or break” models premised on innovation above all else? In this instance, we might visit the “Reclaiming Repair” project by Lara Houston, Steven Jackson, and Daniela Rosner.

How might humanities projects start with design instead of ending with it? That is, how is design much more than the “polish” we apply to surfaces immediately prior to publication or release? Here, Anne Balsamo’s work on design and culture is key.

How might we design contexts for interpretation, not just stuff or objects? The book, Context Providers, by Margot Lovejoy, Christiane Paul, and Victoria Vesna, prompted this question in particular.

Finally, how might design foster deviance in interpretation, or expose and experiment with norms in a material or affective way?

I was honored to present with Kim, Padmini, and Jacque. Our MLab work is inspired by Kim’s “Fashioning Circuits” project, Padmini’s work on “making culture,” and Jacque’s collaborative approach to data, sound, and touch. My notes for the panel, which was oriented toward group discussion, are below. They draw from my experiences with the Kits for Cultural History project.

A Design Practice to Prototype the Past

In the MLab, we’ve been “prototyping the past” by prototyping absence, a process that involves remaking historical technologies that no longer exist, no longer function, or exist only in part in museums and collections. Thus far, we’ve remade technologies such as early wearables (1860s), early magnetic recording devices (1890s), and early optophones (1920s-40s). In so doing, we produce digital models of these technologies as well as tactile components for assembly. These materials are circulated online and by post, and we also exhibit them in galleries and other memory institutions. With them, our aim is to not only test historical claims about early technologies—how they functioned, how they were embedded in culture, and how they were maintained—but also foreground the labor at play in them, including work by people such as Mary Jameson (a key developer of optophones; photographed below) who are largely, if not entirely, absent from scholarship in media history. At the same time, we research against the assumption that we can inhabit or fully recover the positions of people and things in the past.

Mary Jameson reading Anthony Trollope’s The Warden on an optophone, ca. 1921, care of Blind Veterans UK

You might call “prototyping the past” an instance of multimodal scholarship. However we define it, design has played a key role in its articulation across the humanities and fine arts. In fact, during the last year or so, we’ve been moving toward a particular sort of design. At HASTAC, I briefly outlined this design approach (such as it is) in about five minutes through six points. In the MLab, we’ve become especially interested in:

Design as an attribution practice, which attends to the intricacies and specificities of labor. For instance, we often use patents and illustrations to prototype early technologies in 3-D. However, patents very rarely give attribution to people who ultimately maintain or develop the technologies at hand. To what degree can design highlight those missing names today? Or how can it prompt people to consider important differences between labor now and labor then?

Design as inquiry (see Rosner), where we develop scenarios for interpretation, not replicas of historical objects. When we tell people we’re prototyping the past, they tend to assume we’re making exact reproductions for display and circulation. However, we’re not invested in copies. We’re interested in treating design like writing, archival research, and trial-and-error experimentation, among other techniques. The resulting objects manifest arguments made about the past, not re-presentations of history. How, then, might design resist tendencies to treat objects that look historical as historical reconstructions?

Design for experience (as opposed to form) without “users,” but with people who are negotiating with materials—testing, twisting, bending, altering, misusing, repurposing, glitching, and critiquing what’s in circulation. Put differently, we’re leery of creating instructions for people or giving them step-by-step instructions to follow in order to assemble early technologies, in part because instructions are biased (e.g., the invisible narrator) and generally foreclose spaces for experimentation or alternatives. How do we design research so that inquiry continues through other entanglements of meaning with matter (see Barad), against the “receipt” of dead objects to be used or frozen labor to be cited?

Design for responsibility. The very word, “prototyping,” typically elicits speculations about the future, but we can conjecture about the past, too. (See Butler and Kraus.) When we do, we need design paradigms that push conjecture beyond play or “screwing around” toward responsibility: to recognize how experiments with history involve spectres of the past. Through sonification, tactile media, and collective experience, Wernimont and Stern’s The Eugenic Rubicon gives us examples of how to engage history with such sensitivities (or sensitive data) in mind. In short, how do we design to combine entanglement with action and attention to difference?

Design-in-use (see Botero et al.), where iteration and frequent testing across settings eclipse prototyping in the abstract toward some ideal form. When it calls itself “critical,” this approach to design interrogates norms, including how technologies shape experience and proliferate values. Such norms emerge from the privileged positions and embodied habits of designers, together with the default settings of technologies and spaces, and iteration may expose or rewrite them as well as commonplace proclivities toward “the user.”

Design for diffraction (see Barad and Wark), where prototypes of the past do not duplicate or mirror history but instead navigate and foreground our contingent relations with material culture. The past and present are produced together, over and over again, with patterns and change. Following Wark’s language (see pages 158-165 of Molecular Red), we might say that prototyping the past does not prototype the objects of history; it prototypes processes of knowledge with an emphasis on the apparatus of knowledge production. How might design focus on the physical arrangements and phenomena that distinguish process from product, observer from observation, or this sensation from that one—on the matter, meanings, and practices that, in short, make boundaries?

I’m in the middle of writing a short publication (in design studies) that details some of these points. More soon!

Post by Jentery Sayers, attached to the KitsForCulture project, with the news, fabrication, and physcomp tags. Featured image care of HASTAC 2016.

First, I used an HDI 120 3D scanner to digitize the telephone receiver into a 3D model (STL). I then exported the file and opened it in Autodesk 123D Make, which allows you to take 3D models and prep them for fabrication, or in our case, cutting the object into 2D parts using a CNC laser. In 123D Make, I was able to slice my model of the receiver into rings, which I could then cut from one sheet of wood.

Once the rings were cut, I stacked and glued them back into the shape of the model. I also sanded down the finished model to smooth out variations in texture. Pictured below is the original Kellogg receiver with unassembled rings (from my first attempt) and the remade receiver.

As we move forward with prototyping Poulsen’s prototype, we plan to investigate how replicating historical materials affects their function. While replicating form is fairly straightforward in the digitizing process, it is much more difficult to remake surfaces and other fine-grained details, especially across materials.

Post by Katherine Goertz, attached to the KitsForCulture and Makerspace projects, with the fabrication tag. Featured image for this post care of Katherine Goertz and the MLab.

To illustrate this early example of magnetic recording, Marvin Camras (1980/1988) sketched Poulsen’s experiment:

Using Camras’s illustration and other historical materials as guides, we created a trolley to run along piano wire attached to walls in the MLab. The trolley will become a core component of our Early Magnetic Recording Kit (Volume 2 in the Kits for Cultural History series), which we hope to exhibit in 2016.

The kit will eventually contain all the components necessary for performing a version of Poulsen’s experiment. Since Poulsen likely used parts of a wall-mounted telephone in the construction of his magnetic wire recorder, the container for the kit is modelled off an old telephone box. Here’s a rough, incomplete prototype:

While the box itself functions as a container (holding all the necessary components of the recorder), when it is disassembled all of its parts are also used to construct the trolley.

In the deconstruction of the kit, the container transforms into content, and a telephone box is reconstructed into a magnetic recording device.

Post by Danielle Morgan, attached to the KitsForCulture project, with the fabrication and exhibits tags. Images for this post care of Danielle Morgan and Marvin Camras.