CTM 2023

CTM Research Networking Day application
Becca Rose
Doctoral Researcher
Goldsmiths, University of London
September 2022

Title:
Potato Computer Club

Abstract:

Through my practice based PhD research I have developed the “Potato Computer Club” which is a space for affective relations with computers.

The research explores the dialogue between deeply rooted feelings we have with ordinary objects (such as the potato) and new possibilities for technological futures.

I design events and workshops as contexts for exploring the active relations between potatoes and computers. In these events participants have electrical encounters with potatoes.

Through probing, sensing and sonifying, they create ways new ways of listening, hearing, and seeing.

As pedagogical apparatus, potatoes bring many modes of being and thinking into spaces of computing.

They offer relational qualities that activate collective storytelling, and they become a vehicle for questioning computational mastery.

Through imagining computation through the eye of the potato we enter a realm of different possibilities: slowness, storytelling, grounding, kinship, and collectiveness are some of the experiences participants say they have.

The humble spud is a portal that opens up new meaning, memories, feelings, and humour with digital technology.

Short Bio:
Becca Rose is an artist and PhD researcher at Goldsmiths, University of London. Potato Computer Club is part of their AHRC funded practice-based research exploring agency and material pedagogies in computing. Becca is co-curator of participatory computational arts festival Control Shift, and currently programming “Feeling Machines”. They are one third of electronic music making collective PRRRRRT! They currently teach physical computing on BA Computational Arts at Camberwell, University of Arts London, and previously on MA Design at Goldsmiths and BA Digital Media at UWE.

Website: https://www.beccarose.co.uk
Potato Computer Club: https://www.potatocomputer.club
Instagram (currently sharing potato practice here): https://www.instagram.com/becca_rose___

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