Programming / Technique and technology / Care and autonomy in digitized spaces

The course aims to produce care and autonomy in digitized spaces by experimenting with concrete situations of hardware and software repair, and to introduce students to programming tools with extended use. The aim is also to reposition these devices with a critical awareness of current digital practices.

Networks and flows

This approach focuses on digital cultures, with the aim of learning to identify and situate our uses in digitized spaces. These are presentations of devices and how they work. (Examples: surveillance ecosystems, the smartphone, the internet and servers, the mechanisms of artificial intelligence, programmed obsolescence, social networks...)

Objectives

Provide a global understanding of how a selection of digital devices work. Relate these devices to extended networks.

Situate one's own use/practice of these devices.

Programming This module functions as a programming workshop. We will work on collective and individual projects. Our field of experimentation will be connected objects and the web (html/css/javascript). We'll be working on microcontrollers such as ESP32 or Raspberry Pico, with an emphasis on the MicroPython language. We'll attach electronic components, sensors, LEDs, buttons etc. and program web interfaces to manipulate them. Objectives : Approach programming by unfolding existing algorithms/software and understanding how they work, demystifying the underlying code. Become aware of the diversity of existing languages and infrastructures, and their political significance. Modify / manipulate code to realize the contours and stakes of such constructions. Write code and intervene physically on electronic components.

Repair

Regular repair sessions will be organized during the course. Various tools and techniques will be covered. Students will have the opportunity to bring their own objects / machines / programs / operating systems to repair. One possibility would be to have consultation/repair sessions on Erg's machines.

Objectives

Learn to open: use / find the right tool, avoid destroying envelopes.

Learn to diagnose: identify and know the hardware/software. Understand where it fits in the digital space. Find out about homonymous and alternative tools.

Measure the usefulness and costs in terms of resources, energy and time involved in repairs. Consult shared experiences, and share in turn.