The disposal of electronic waste is becoming one of the growing problems that the planet is facing. Tons of electronic waste is dumped illegally to 3rd world countries. Consequently the local people in those countries are exposed to levels of toxicity that could cause them serious diseases as well as the degradation on the natural ecosystems. The electronic waste is perceived as useless by our society, and this project aims to challenge that idea by looking at sustainable ways of manipulating electronics.

This dissertation examines the role progressive college radio played as a site of political engagement for youth in the United States in the 1980s, particularly in its connection to punk culture. Progressive college radio is defined here as a particular type of noncommercial radio broadcast from university radio stations. It inherited from educational radio a commitment to democratic communication and from community radio a commitment to localism and representing underrepresented communities. Progressive college radio continued these missions, but also applied them to music, playing music considered unmarketable by the commercial music industry and thereby representing underrepresented musicians. College radio is popularly remembered as the radio format that helped create commercial alternative rock in the 1980s. This narrative effaces the way the most progressive college stations programmed music hostile to the music industry, especially punk and its related genres, and the way that progressive DJs often felt uncomfortable being part of a farm system for the music industry, something this dissertation investigates. Through discourse analysis of archival materials from four progressive college radio stations, as well as interviews with former DJs, this dissertation reveals how station personnel understood the role of progressive college radio in relation to the music industry, punk culture, the dominant culture of the US in the 1980s, and in their own lives. By investigating how the DJs conceptualized and debated their programming and production practices, this project illustrates how progressive college radio responded to increasing music industry scrutiny and a conservative culture’s increasingly hostile and narrow conceptions of youth. This dissertation also charts the ways progressive college radio DJs mobilized punk’s do-it-yourself (DIY) mode of cultural production, amateur aesthetics, and anti-authoritarianism, to create both a physical and sonic space for self-representation and creative expression. / text

With the increasing ubiquity of networked “smart” devices that read and gather data on the physical world, the disembodied, cognitive realm of cyberspace has become “everted,” as such technologies migrate the communications networks and data collection of the Internet into the physical world. Popular open-source “maker” practices—most notably the practice of physical computing, which networks objects with digital environments using sensors and microcontrollers—increasingly push human-computer interaction (HCI) into the physical domain. Yet such practices, as political theorists and some philosophers of technology argue, bypass the very question of subjectivity, instead lauding the socioeconomic liberation of the individual afforded by open-source hardware practices. What is missing across these discourses is a technocultural framework for studying the material ways that everted technologies articulate subjects. I argue that examining the various, contradictory forms of interface that emerge from physical computing provides such a framework. To support this claim, I focus on several case studies, drawn from popular physical computing practices and communities, and analyze the particular ways that these devices articulate subjectivity. I conclude by linking my technocultural framework with various feminist theories of boundary transgression and hybridity, and end by suggesting that, in an everted landscape, the subject is politically constituted by a proximity to present time and space. / Graduate / 0585 / shaunmac@uvic.ca

With the increasing ubiquity of networked “smart” devices that read and gather data on the physical world, the disembodied, cognitive realm of cyberspace has become “everted,” as such technologies migrate the communications networks and data collection of the Internet into the physical world. Popular open-source “maker” practices—most notably the practice of physical computing, which networks objects with digital environments using sensors and microcontrollers—increasingly push human-computer interaction (HCI) into the physical domain. Yet such practices, as political theorists and some philosophers of technology argue, bypass the very question of subjectivity, instead lauding the socioeconomic liberation of the individual afforded by open-source hardware practices. What is missing across these discourses is a technocultural framework for studying the material ways that everted technologies articulate subjects. I argue that examining the various, contradictory forms of interface that emerge from physical computing provides such a framework. To support this claim, I focus on several case studies, drawn from popular physical computing practices and communities, and analyze the particular ways that these devices articulate subjectivity. I conclude by linking my technocultural framework with various feminist theories of boundary transgression and hybridity, and end by suggesting that, in an everted landscape, the subject is politically constituted by a proximity to present time and space. / Graduate / 2015-04-21 / 0585 / shaunmac@uvic.ca

Existem inúmeras técnicas de síntese de áudio utilizadas atualmente em instrumentos musicais profissionais, dentre as quais as mais fundamentais são a síntese aditiva e a síntese subtrativa. A síntese subtrativa se tornou popular e foi muito explorada entre as décadas de 60 e 70 com a criação de módulos analógicos de hardware que podiam ser interconectados, criando o conceito de sintetizador analógico modular. Apesar do uso deste tipo de sintetizador ter diminuído durante as décadas subsequentes, nos últimos anos sua utilização voltou a crescer e diversos modelos deste tipo de instrumento são vendidos atualmente, porém em geral a preços elevados. Sintetizadores digitais também disponibilizam a técnica de síntese subtrativa utilizando componentes eletrônicos customizados e desenvolvidos pelos fabricantes de sintetizadores com o intuito de utilizar avançadas técnicas de processamento de sinais, o que ainda mantém seus preços elevados. Neste trabalho investigamos a hipótese de que é possível desenvolver um instrumento musical funcional e de qualidade com recursos limitados de processamento, e exploramos essa hipótese implementando síntese subtrativa em uma plataforma acessível e de baixo custo. O desenvolvimento é baseado em linguagem orientada a objetos para criação de módulos de software replicando as características dos módulos encontrados em sintetizadores analógicos modulares. Com esta abordagem, obtemos um software modular que pode ser facilmente modificado baseado nas preferências do programador. A implementação foi testada na plataforma Arduino Due, que é uma plataforma de baixo custo e contém um processador 32-bits ARM 84 MHz. Foi possível adicionar osciladores com algoritmo anti-aliasing, filtros, geradores de envelope, módulo de efeito, uma interface MIDI e um teclado externo, obtendo assim um sintetizador subtrativo completo. Além disto, incluímos no desenvolvimento a implementação de um órgão baseado em síntese aditiva, com polifonia completa e inspirado na arquitetura de órgãos clássicos, mostrando a possibilidade de possuir dois importantes e poderosos métodos de síntese em uma plataforma acessível e de baixo custo. Com esta implementação aberta e pública, buscamos contribuir com o movimento maker e faça-você-mesmo, incentivando novos desenvolvimentos nesta área, em especial na computação e engenharia, aumentando o uso e acesso a instrumentos musicais eletrônicos e a criatividade musical. / Subtractive and additive synthesis are two powerful sound synthesis techniques that caused a revolution when the first electronic and electro mechanic music instruments started to appear some decades ago. Subtractive synthesis became very popular during the 60s and 70s after the creation of analog hardware modules that could be interconnected, creating the concept of the modular synthesizers. After the initial impact, for some years these instruments faced a slow-down in its usage, a tendency that was reverted on the past decade. Nevertheless, the prices of these instruments are often high. Digital synthesizers also offer the subtractive synthesis technique, by using customized electronic components designed and developed by the synthesizers vendors in order to use the most up-to-date technologies and signal processing techniques, which also leads to high prices. In this project, we investigate the hypothesis that it is possible to design and develop a good quality music instrument with low budget electronic components and limited processing capabilities, by implementing this on a low budget and easy to use platform. The development is based on object oriented design, creating software modules that replicates the functionalities of analog synthesizer hardware modules. With this approach, we have a modular software that can be easily changed based on programmers’ preferences. The implementation was tested on the Arduino Due board, which is a cheap, easy to use and widely available platform and powered by a 32-bits ARM 84Mhz processor. We were able to add oscillators with anti-aliasing algorithms, filters, envelope generators, delay effects, a MIDI interface and a keybed, making a complete synthesizer. In addition to this, we included an additive synthesis organ design with full polyphony based on classic organs design, demonstrating the possibility of having two powerful synthesis methods on a cheap and widely available platform. With this design, suitable for low cost platforms, we intend to contribute to the maker movement and encourage new implementations in this area, especially in the computing and engineering fields, increasing the usage and access to (electronic) musical instruments and musical creativity.

This thesis explores the relationships between punk and anarchism in the contemporary contexts of the UK, Poland, and Indonesia from an insider punk and anarchist perspective. New primary ethnographic information forms the bulk of the research, drawing on Grounded Theory Method and an engagement with Orientalism. The theoretical framework is informed by the concept of antinomy which embraces complication and contradiction and rather than attempt to smooth-out complexities, impose a simplified narrative, or construct a fanciful dialectic, the thesis examines the numerous tensions that emerge in order to critique the relationships between punk and anarchism. A key tension which runs throughout the PhD is the dismissal of punk by some anarchists. This is often couched in terms of lifestylist versus workerist anarchism, with punk being denigrated in association with the former. The case studies bring out this tension, but also significantly complicate it, and the final chapter analyses this issue in more detail to argue that punk engages with a wide spectrum of anarchisms, and that the lifestylist / workerist dichotomy is anyway false. The case studies themselves focus on themes such as anti-fascism, food sovereignty/animal rights activism, politicisation, feminism, squatting, religion, and repression. New empirical information, garnered through numerous interviews and extensive participant observation in the UK, Poland, and Indonesia, informs the thick description of the case study contexts. The theory and analysis emerge from this data, and the voice of the punks themselves is given primacy here.

Existem inúmeras técnicas de síntese de áudio utilizadas atualmente em instrumentos musicais profissionais, dentre as quais as mais fundamentais são a síntese aditiva e a síntese subtrativa. A síntese subtrativa se tornou popular e foi muito explorada entre as décadas de 60 e 70 com a criação de módulos analógicos de hardware que podiam ser interconectados, criando o conceito de sintetizador analógico modular. Apesar do uso deste tipo de sintetizador ter diminuído durante as décadas subsequentes, nos últimos anos sua utilização voltou a crescer e diversos modelos deste tipo de instrumento são vendidos atualmente, porém em geral a preços elevados. Sintetizadores digitais também disponibilizam a técnica de síntese subtrativa utilizando componentes eletrônicos customizados e desenvolvidos pelos fabricantes de sintetizadores com o intuito de utilizar avançadas técnicas de processamento de sinais, o que ainda mantém seus preços elevados. Neste trabalho investigamos a hipótese de que é possível desenvolver um instrumento musical funcional e de qualidade com recursos limitados de processamento, e exploramos essa hipótese implementando síntese subtrativa em uma plataforma acessível e de baixo custo. O desenvolvimento é baseado em linguagem orientada a objetos para criação de módulos de software replicando as características dos módulos encontrados em sintetizadores analógicos modulares. Com esta abordagem, obtemos um software modular que pode ser facilmente modificado baseado nas preferências do programador. A implementação foi testada na plataforma Arduino Due, que é uma plataforma de baixo custo e contém um processador 32-bits ARM 84 MHz. Foi possível adicionar osciladores com algoritmo anti-aliasing, filtros, geradores de envelope, módulo de efeito, uma interface MIDI e um teclado externo, obtendo assim um sintetizador subtrativo completo. Além disto, incluímos no desenvolvimento a implementação de um órgão baseado em síntese aditiva, com polifonia completa e inspirado na arquitetura de órgãos clássicos, mostrando a possibilidade de possuir dois importantes e poderosos métodos de síntese em uma plataforma acessível e de baixo custo. Com esta implementação aberta e pública, buscamos contribuir com o movimento maker e faça-você-mesmo, incentivando novos desenvolvimentos nesta área, em especial na computação e engenharia, aumentando o uso e acesso a instrumentos musicais eletrônicos e a criatividade musical. / Subtractive and additive synthesis are two powerful sound synthesis techniques that caused a revolution when the first electronic and electro mechanic music instruments started to appear some decades ago. Subtractive synthesis became very popular during the 60s and 70s after the creation of analog hardware modules that could be interconnected, creating the concept of the modular synthesizers. After the initial impact, for some years these instruments faced a slow-down in its usage, a tendency that was reverted on the past decade. Nevertheless, the prices of these instruments are often high. Digital synthesizers also offer the subtractive synthesis technique, by using customized electronic components designed and developed by the synthesizers vendors in order to use the most up-to-date technologies and signal processing techniques, which also leads to high prices. In this project, we investigate the hypothesis that it is possible to design and develop a good quality music instrument with low budget electronic components and limited processing capabilities, by implementing this on a low budget and easy to use platform. The development is based on object oriented design, creating software modules that replicates the functionalities of analog synthesizer hardware modules. With this approach, we have a modular software that can be easily changed based on programmers’ preferences. The implementation was tested on the Arduino Due board, which is a cheap, easy to use and widely available platform and powered by a 32-bits ARM 84Mhz processor. We were able to add oscillators with anti-aliasing algorithms, filters, envelope generators, delay effects, a MIDI interface and a keybed, making a complete synthesizer. In addition to this, we included an additive synthesis organ design with full polyphony based on classic organs design, demonstrating the possibility of having two powerful synthesis methods on a cheap and widely available platform. With this design, suitable for low cost platforms, we intend to contribute to the maker movement and encourage new implementations in this area, especially in the computing and engineering fields, increasing the usage and access to (electronic) musical instruments and musical creativity.

This thesis examines how select participants came to be involved in DiY punk culture, what they do in it, and how, if they do, they exit from the culture. Underpinning this will be an ethnographic examination of how the ethics of punk informs their views of remaining authentic and what they consider to be a sell out and betrayal of these values. I illustrate how such ethics have evolved and how they inform the daily practice of two chosen DiY punk communities in Leeds and Bradford. I show how these communities reciprocally relate to each other. I ask such questions as what do the participants get out of what is often experienced as hard work and toil, particularly where it is fraught with a series of dilemmas bound up in politics, ethics, identity and integrity. I offer a grounded theory of how and what ways those involved in DiY punk authenticate themselves in their actions. This will demonstrate how and, more importantly, why DiY punks distinguish their ethical version of punk over and above what are taken as less favourable forms of punk. What happens if previous passionately held DiY beliefs are surrendered? Severe consequences follow should a participant sell out. I present an account of these and suggest that what they involve is not the clear-cut question that is sometimes assumed, either sincerely or selfrighteously.

This paper presents a new way of thinking about designing personalized artefacts for dyads (a group of two people) in long-distance relationships, whether they are family members, close friends or romantic couples. In this paper I am presenting the idea of a playful, yet useful tangible design for people who are often not able to see their loved ones in person. I strive to ideate a highly personalized and meaningful design through a Do It Yourself (DIY) activity for users, which will give them a chance to personalize the product according to their own needs. For this research, littleBits electronics have been used as a prototyping and DIY material. They allow you to create and connect two devices together and use them for different purposes. User testing with two close friends who live in different countries has been conducted. They received three different half-way done prototypes that they could choose from to build. The results showed that the idea of DIY artefact for presence in absence is worth researching, since the activity creates a meaningful shared experience which adds a bigger value to the device.

Since 2000, digital technology and other technological advances such as 3D printing have improved non-traditional scientists’ participation in biotechnology and life science research and development. Non-traditional scientists, including amateur scientists, students and graduates from the life sciences, artists, programmers, engineers, and entrepreneurs, have rapidly increased under the Do-It-Yourself biotechnology (DIY bio) movement. These DIY biotechnologists or DIYers increase biotechnology research and life science inventions in society by encouraging open and cooperative development. Biotechnology research and development (R&D), especially in healthcare and agricultural biotechnology, suffers from patent proliferation with fragmented and overlapping rights that cover upstream research resources and research tools which can enable downstream developments. The proliferation of patents and related rights protecting upstream research can be detrimental to progress and citizens’ welfare because they can increase the cost of R&D, interfere with access to upstream research tools, and allow R&D to be concentrated around the issues found in developed nations. Many DIYers depend on self-funding and community resources to experiment with biotechnology. Proprietary research tools and equipment are harder to access. Some of them operate alongside proprietary R&D in a research area by building on off-patent technologies and inventing around patents. Some DIYers have made significant contributions in science that benefit other biotechnology researchers and developers, such as developing and manufacturing open source versions of proprietary research tools and equipment. Nonetheless, they can risk inadvertent patent infringement by working in competitive biotechnology research areas with heavy patent coverage. The presence of patent thickets in biotechnology can also discourage volunteers’ initial participation in open R&D. When third party patents develop around open and cumulative development, the risk of patent infringement increases for downstream development and commercial activities based on upstream open R&D. Alternative knowledge management strategies, such as open source patent licensing, clearinghouses and contract-based compensatory liability regimes, allow open innovation communities to create a protected commons of shared resources. However, these do not resolve problems in biotechnology patent law, such as fragmented and overlapping rights on cumulative technologies and strategic patent use. Government actions can address these problems, such as broadening outdated patent law exceptions, which can discourage unnecessary patenting and reduce the risk of infringement in alternative innovation environments.