Section: Projects / Ellentriek

Ellentriek: Workshops about Electricity and Art

A collaboration between Pianofabriek, Ladda and Constant. A series of workshops investigating the relationship between art and electricity.

‘Ellentriek’ is an important part of our homes, gardens, kitchen’s appliances, music instruments, art... You name it and you find cables, resistors, potentiometers, batteries and much more. Internetis full of ’Do It Yourself’ tips and tricks, for example how to convert an old electric tooth brush in a helicopter or an old toy into a synthesizer, how to build a mini-robot... The artistscreate works of interactive art. Electriciansno longer work only with cables and fuses, but also at decors and installations for theaters, museums and artistes...

In workshops led by artists and electricians, makers create their own electric structures and unravel the secrets of oooohm...

A bit of history.

In 2006 De Pianofabriek and Ladda started an artistic and educational project about art and electricity. During a three-days workshop they analyzed the relationship between those two areas. This first edition was very successfully. The participants were incredibly enthusiastic. In 2007 the NPO Constant joined them as a new partner. En 2008, this fruitful collaboration generated a thematic project gradually designed and developed. Open-doors weekends were regularly held to discuss the basics of the project and to allow new people to step in.

An important moment in this project is the creation of the ’ellentriek’ blog. His goal is not only to inform and provide an overview of the evolution of ’ellentriek’, but also and mainly to collect and exchange information, tips and tricks about art and electricity. Participants, students, teachers and visitors can find details about the electronic experiments and adventures of ’ellentriek’. De Pianofabriek, Ladda and the NPO Constant support the principle of the ’open source’ and give unlimited access to information, knowledge and technology.

Articles

Workshop · 2013

Ellentriek #17: Hack your knitting machine with Knitic!

Ellentriek goes textile: liberating knitting machines In the eighties and nineties electronic knitting machines were readily available. But it was never a simple task to knit an image, a (...)
Workshop · 2012

Ellentriek-Recup

Your copier, scanner or mobile phone is broken and your local thrift store has kindly referred you to the dump? Don’t worry, inside these machines you can find all kinds of treasure, such as (...)
Workshop · 2012

Ellentriek #15 meets Code, Arts & Crafts : Shielded - extend your Arduino

(CC BY-NC 2.0) Some rights reserved, image by _kzr With an Arduino you can collect a lot of sensor data, from smelling gasses to measuring temperature or light and lots more. But how do you (...)
Workshop · 2012

Ellentriek #14: sew - measure - send - receive

Ellentriek is a series of workshops, often collaborative, where artists can come and work together on their own artistic electronics projects, made with open hardware. This Ellentriek is about (...)

Kijk mama, regarde papa, look sis! Invitation CLOSING EVENT 17/12

The ever evolving exhibition organized by Pttl is about to end. Ellentriek takes advantage of the festive atmosphere to present the Ellentrieken valies, a travel trunk full of tools and (...)
Workshop · 2011

Ellentriek #13: Audio special

Ellentriek is all about audio in November. We will learn how to build small own amplifiers and microphones, during two long Wednesday afternoons. With a soldering iron, a couple of components, (...)
Atelier · 2011

Ellentriek au parc

Qu’est-ce que c’est ? Des puces ? Non, pas celles qui grattent ! Comment faire marcher un petit led (lampe minuscule particulière) ? Est-ce possible de coudre avec de l’électronique ? Venez (...)
Workshop · 2011

Ellentriek in the parc

What are chips - no - not the ones you eat! How do you make a led burn? Can you sew with electronics? Come experiment with Ellentriek. Crocodile clamps don’t bite! (We will work under 5 Volt - (...)
Workshop · 2011

ELLENTRIEK #12 : Ellentriek goes High Voltage - HI VOLTAGE! (New dates)

Ellentriek is a series of workshops where artists can come and work together on their own artistic electronics projects. We work with themes. This Ellentriek has two threads happening (...)
Workshop · 2010

(a little step) Beyond prototyping

Ellentriek (Constant & Pianofabriek) meets Code, Arts & Crafts (iMAL) to propose an advanced level workshop on building Arduino-like constructions. A little step towards autonomy and (...)

Feeds

2013-05-07 12:30:53

Ellentriek #17: Hack your knitting machine with Knitic!

Ellentriek goes textile: liberating knitting machines Saturday 18th May 2013 10am – 6pm Pianofabriek Exhibition space Rue du Fortstraat 35, 1060 Brussels In the eighties and nineties electronic knitting machines were readily available. But it was never a simple task to knit an image, a drawing, (...)

2013-03-11 20:37:49

MakeyMakey – versions

Makey Makey is a nice and fun Open Hardware project, developed by Mit researchers Jay Silver and Eric Rosenbaum. It’s an Arduino based project that could get started through crowdfunding. Basically you can turn any conductive surface into a sensor: bananas and other fruit/vegetables, cutlery, (...)

2012-10-04 15:21:42

Ellentriek Recup@Recyclart

Your copy machine, scanner or mobile phone has broken down and even the second hand shop is no longer interested in getting it fixed for sale. No worry, you can still find interesting bits and parts such as motors, lenses, microphones or amplifiers hidden within. In this workshop you will learn (...)

2012-09-28 11:14:32

Charger – battery compatability

For a project this set-up was bought: https://shop.sensestage.eu/nl/batterijen/28-battery-kit-small-400-mah.html It consists of a Polymer Lithium Ion battery (3.7V) with a capacity of about 400 mAh and a LiPo Charger Basic – Mini-USB. Now, for another project we have a Li-Ion recheargable (...)

2012-04-24 14:50:59

Tested Arduino Shields and the used libraries

*// MP3 Player Shield plays mp3s that come from a Micro sd card. * Excellent library of Bill Porter, which simplifies the code and usage a lot. You should unzip the library and put the two subfolders in your sketchbook Libraries folder. (follow the instructions:-)) * works out of the box with (...)

2012-04-18 15:50:32

Arduino Shield List

Here is a great database of Arduino shields that gives you pin usage details for 285 shields from 114 makers! This list makes sure you can look at the compatibility of shields and it also lists the actual licences the shield developers use. It is quite confronting to see that the majority of (...)

2012-03-29 15:16:31

Ellentriek #15 meets Code, Arts & Crafts : Shielded – extend your Arduino

(CC BY-NC 2.0) Some rights reserved, image by _kzr @ iMAL, Saturday 28.04.12 & Sunday 29.04.12 30 Quai des Charbonnages Koolmijnenkaai 30 – 1080 Bruxelles Brussel 1080 With an Arduino you can collect a lot of sensor data, from smelling gasses to measuring temperature or light and lots more. (...)

2012-01-13 18:41:34

Ellentriek 14: presentation by Natacha Roussel

Quasi OBJets environnements hybrides Weiser 1991 Ubiquitous Technology informatique omnipresente In opposition to the desktop « user » ubiquitous technologies engages many more dispositifs at the same time in daily activities and the person is not necessarily aware that this the case. Laura (...)

2011-12-16 23:22:05

Ellentriek Valies: The making of

We are making the Ellentriek Valies, a travel trunk full of tools, electronic goodies and microcontrollers. You can use the suitcase to start tinkering with interactive electronics wherever you wish. We had quite some dilemma’s to deal with: - what kind of trunk do you choose: a real tool case (...)