EM #3 – Failure châtelaine

I attended the DiY Networking seminar: An interdisciplinary approach at the Leibniz Centre for Informatics at Schloss Dagstuhl. One of the many discussions explored during the conference was the topic of failure.

Together with a group of computer and social scientists –  Irina Shklovski (ITU, DK), Christian Becker, (Universität Mannheim, DE), John Cowcroft (Comm Systems, Cambridge), Paul Dourish (Informatics, UCI), Kevin Fall (Software Engineering, Carnegie Mellon), Alison Powell (Media & Comms, LSE), – we approached the topic from many different disciplinary positions by attempting to make a machine that enquired into failure.

It takes the form of a châtelaine – a piece of wearable technology worn by women from C16th – made up of  a decorative belt from which a series of utility devices hang from chains, such as scissors, pens, clock, tweezers, keys, thimbles etc.

The Failure Châtelaine is a piece of wearable technology that enquires into the many material, messy and complex socio-cultural and political aspects of failure.