Crafting Malfunction: Rhetoric and Circuit-Bending

Authors

Steven Hammer, Saint Joseph's UniversityFollow
Aimée Knight, Saint Joseph's UniversityFollow

Streaming Media

Format

Video/MP4; File duration: 12:08 File size: 123.3 MB

Abstract

Circuit-bending, an art practice developed in the 1960's, involves the creative short circuiting of battery-powered toys and instruments. Like many of its avant-garde precursors, circuit-bending is a composition practice that values access, chance, and indeterminacy. For this special issue of Harlot, we document our own circuit-bending process and make connections between the work of Qubais Reed Ghazala, the pioneer of circuit-bending, and rhetoric and writing. Specifically, we discuss the importance of access and creativity, invention and discovery, and the ways that composition is a collaborative performance between humans and nonhumans.

About the Author(s)

Steven Hammer is an Assistant Professor of Communication and Digital Media at Saint Joseph’s University, where he researches and teaches courses in multimedia production, digital media studies, and sonic rhetorics. He is also a sound/video artist, collector of forgotten technologies, and live music enthusiast.

Aimée Knight is an assistant professor in the Communication Studies Department at Saint Joseph’s University. Her research centers on multimodal composition, digital storytelling and new (and not so new) aesthetics.

DOI

10.15760/harlot.2015.14.3

Persistent Identifier

https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/39479

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Recommended Citation

Hammer, Steven and Knight, Aimée (2015) "Crafting Malfunction: Rhetoric and Circuit-Bending," Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion: No. 14, 3.
https://doi.org/10.15760/harlot.2015.14.3