Objects in Flux - RMIT Research Repository - RMIT University

[Figure 5-28]
Linear encoder, 2006.
It’s a linear encoder, just like the mouse’s encoder wheel
except straight. I presume it was used by the printer to check
print head movement.
[Figure 5-29]
Linear encoder – detail, 2006.
Here’s a close-up. The perforated strip alternately blocks or
allows light to pass between an optical encoder’s send and
receive modules.
[Figure 5-30]
Testing the linear encoder, 2006.
Here you can see the mouse’s circuit board liberated from
its enclosure and positioned on the strip so that left and right
Telling Stories
sumption and my general belief structures.
Through this journey I have developed a deep
familiarity with specific objects and processes.
This experience is, however, different from be-
ing an expert in a particular field; my knowl-
edge is materially and contextually sited within
my own life. Practices of object modification en-
gage the world in a very immediate and physi-
cal way. There is something primitive about
this form of engagement in that it describes an
intimate and responsive relationship between
the individual and their surroundings. xxvi Rather
than being the antithesis of consumer practices
this relationship runs through acts of consump-
tion, residing at the localized point in time and
space where individuals negotiate themselves
into the world. Our ability to speak of this
relationship as ‘primitive’ highlights the extent
to which commercial entities have structured
and obscured the individual’s relationship to the
material environment.
While my engagement with hacking and mod-
ding practices produced an increased sense of
personal agency, it also brought a degree of
tension. As I hacked or modified an object I
xxvi. I use the term ‘primitive’ here in a similar
sense to Colin St. John Wilson’s description of
architect Eileen Gray in The Other Tradition
of Modern Architecture. Here Wilson claims
Gray’s practice has an ‘intimacy, responsiveness
and authenticity that we normally consider
to be unique to those structures that we call
‘primitive’, that is to say, carried out by the
inhabitants themselves, using only their own
hands and the materials locally to hand, coping
with the prevailing environment, developing any
and every advantage from local topography, and
erecting means of defence against any adverse
conditions’ (1995, p. 170).
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