Components
Components is a remaking of four everyday electronic components: capacitor, resistor, inductor, and crystal oscillator. These hypo-functional components have been handmade with both traditional and not-so-traditional crafting techniques, using raw, and where possible, unprocessed materials. These works reference the little known history of electronic technology in which craftsmanship, experimentation, and natural philosophy were necessary to divine and manipulate energy from natural objects.
Process
Many trials, experiments and early iterations were undertaken in an attempt to find the materials, forms, and structures able to convey and exhibit the electronic properties relevant to each component.
The sketch to the right is the first drawn concept of the component series, however the photos below show the various compositions that I played around with before arriving at the final outcome.
For these works, I made my first foray into jewellery-making, learning to use a jewelers torch to form copper solder joins at much higher temperatures, known as brazing.
The capacitor, with its two rails of closely interspersed copper plates, was the most challenging component to construct.
While there are many beautiful rocks that are conductive (pyrite, chalcopyrite, etc), I wanted to reference the traditional carbon-based resistor. Carbon resistors are made from a combination of carbon and ceramic: carbon being conductive, and ceramic non-conductive, the ratio of each substance determining the total resistance value of the component.
In previous walks in bushfire affected areas I'd collected half-scorched rocks that displayed the same property of a carbon resistor -- the burnt side of the rock having a certain resistance. The more scorched, the lower the resistance value. For the resistor component I chose a completely scorched rock (or what appeared to be a rock! Perhaps it was miscellaneous debris that had been subject to extreme temperatures). Sure enough, if probed at the correct points, it displayed resistive properties of about 900k ohms.
End result: Exhibition
Inductor: copper, magnetite
Crystal Oscillator: copper, quartz
Capacitor: copper, mica
Resistor: copper, bushfire carbonised rock
