Anaïs is off to the NO SCHOOL in Nevers to give a presentation about digital repair practices (our previous project). It’s also a great opportunity to visit and conduct observation during this two-week summer school initiated 4 years ago by artists Benjamin Gaulon & Dasha Illina. This alternative school model brings together around forty people in all (students, teachers and facilitators) to exchange ideas and produce projects that question notions of use, misappropriation, recycling and digital responsibility. In this provincial city, the Nø School aims to decentralize digital knowledge. The presentation takes place in the Galerie. At 7.00 pm, around 35 people are seated on benches and chairs on the floor, and the conference begins. People converse in English. The atypical decor is a reminder of the group’s ambition, with glitches hanging on the wall and sculptures made from electronic micro-components filling the showcase.
Among the people we met was Gijs Gieskes, an artist-designer who makes hybrid musical instruments. His approach is utterly fascinating and precisely spot on with regards to what were are interested in :
« When i started to make electronic things i knew almost nothing about how they work, but with simple solutions i managed to make usable instruments anyway. For instance i used a speaker as a relay, where a transistor should have been used. Because of knowing little i used my creativity in a none efficient way, i invented things that already existed. But i feel proud of these inventions, for instance the Relay the Vactrol and the Phase Locked Loop. Nowadays i know much more about electronics, but i still want to work the same way as when i started. »