Proposal:
In 2004, we were asked to make a sketch design for a mobile unit that could function as an expression of the Digitales Archive. Digitales is an annual event taking place in Brussels and Antwerp which operates at the intersection of digital technology and feminism.
Our proposal:
Our idea is to create a Mobile Digitales, a transportable hardware
and software unit incorporating both digital and analog know-how. To keep with the pro-active ethic of the event, we wanted our hypothetical object to be both a prototype and tool, designed for education, demonstration and production. The object is performative and is a tactile catalyst for raising issues around women and technology. Comprised of hardware and software, Mobile Digitales is compact, and ready for traveling by foot, car, train or airplane. It is not meant to house a miniature version of the Digitales Archive but can be seen as an extension of the collection. It is a means of narrating through different themes of the archive.
Hardware:
We use the word hardware in a literal sense. We envision a wooden case on wheels which is designed to easily move around. It is a hybrid object hovering between an old fashioned trunk, a modern suitcase, a miniature desk and balie. Built with interior shelves and dividers, Digitales representational materials can be housed, along with stickers, stamps, papers, a
printer, CD's, cables, maps of the city, and other materials for
producing on the spot. The hardware unit also holds the software
garment which doubles up as a bag for a laptop.
For the design of Mobile Digitales, our vision of hardware is when Hans Eichenberger's portable desk meets the modern condition where all of a woman's significant possessions must to fit into a single suitcase.
The hardware unit is about life on the move and the necessity to grow temporary roots wherever you go. The suitcase doubles as soapbox/platform, reception desk, workspace, seat. When carefully placed, it can be used to mark a space (as if you would plant your flag somewhere to claim a territory of your own), to appropriate a corner of a room or it can function as a launching platform.
What's inside the hardware unit?
- A tailored apron we call software
- space which is designed to hold leaflets, CD's, DVD's
- a wireless equipped laptop
- External speakers
- a printer
- Soft Chalkboard
- Files for cataloging acquired items
- Stamps, stickers and badges designed to mark just about anything as a feminist tool, object or subject.
- A logbook of places and situations the unit has traveled to
- A manual including a set of blueprints
Software:
Our version of software is where the classic domestic apron...
meets the wireless network...
We envision a garment which brings together storage and computability. When the user wants to, they can leave the hardware unit behind and still operate as point of distribution. The outfit, like all uniforms, is an emblem, a means of identification, in this case, a billboard announcing: "Digitales is here". it’s design is meant to make the wearer feel shielded and at the same time it adds a
provocative touch to her presence.
The user of mobile Digitalis is:
- a woman
- a hostess
- a tour guide
- a nomad
- an author
- an apprentice
- an educator
- a point where the digital and the analogue meld
- a hub for other technologies and people that surround her
- a wireless parasite
- a one woman empire
- a satellite
Mobile Digitalis is intended to provoke discussions about women and technology and perhaps toy with old gender myths. 
Metropolis, 1927
As a narrative tool it can tell tales about:
- the cyborg
- the gender divide
- wearables
- hospitality
- mobile and parasitic operations in urban space
- DIY activism: the ethics of being able to get on your soap box and rant
- autonomy and dependency
- nodes
- hubs
- Temporary Autonomous Zones
- Temporary Connection Zones
- and the fact that all technologies are situated even when they are on the move!
Example Scenarios for Mobile Digitales:
- It is brought as a Trojan horse to conferences, public events and meetings to represent Digitales
- It can be used to highlight certain threads in the Digitales Archive
- It can have different hosts or storytellers. For example, it could be loaned to a science fiction writer to see what stories she could tell from the object. She could find ways of connecting the histories of automatons to this wearable rough-tech object. Or, it could be loaned to a wireless pirate who could tour the city outing unprotected networks for all to use.
- It could be brought to schools and used as starting point to open up discussions about technology, its uses and social implications. For example the blueprint or pattern can be used to talk about copyright and open source. The dress can be used to talk about cyborgs or wearables.
- It can function as a symbolic object, meaning something to be shown in exhibitions or at presentations.
A manual, blueprint and pattern will be included with the hardware/software unit for public distribution:
Mobile Digitales will be licensed under a GPL, meaning that anyone interested mobile unit, can replicate, modify and
distribute it, as long as a manual/ pattern is included and
further distributed in subsequent presentations.
Production:
Along with it’s DIY character, we think the software and hardware needs to be produced from and with easily accessible materials and techniques. At the same time we want it to be able to survive extreme wear and tear, for this reason, we would like to use the expertise of a carpenter/builder and a seamstress/tailor for the production of the first prototype . In the end, the final design should be relatively simple, pleasurable to use and reproduce.
This proposal was developed with support of:
