July 13, 2009

Greenpunk

There are really few USB devices that are more fun to plug in and start pounding on than the Korg PadKontrol. It's a big square grid of rubber pads that light up when you hit them, providing both tactile and visual sensations. Even if it weren't also a versatile MIDI controller, the PadKontrol would still be good for a few moments of pointless glee. It's enough to make a person wonder why using a computer can't always be that enjoyable.

Synth makers, particularly the high-end ones, know that the physical feel and feedback of an interface is important. That's why most of them come with lots of knobs and buttons. Even on my Micron, which is mostly metal and has only four knobs and a pitch wheel, those elements are made out of easily-grabbable materials that are fun to play with. Companies like Nord and Moog have made their reputations with lots of responsive controls and classy wooden cases. They do this because they know that musicians incorporate the physical feel of an instrument into the experience--those sensations and limitations are part of what makes us love the act of playing music, even when it's on a keyboard.

It's less common, I think, to find a computer or consumer electronics manufacturer doing the same kind of thing. Apple's current designs, which tend to set the trends, are almost all smooth metal or plastic lozenges--some like them, I find them chilly. I love my Thinkpad's carbon-fiber finish and excellent keyboard, but its design alternates between Japanese bento box (lid closed) and Soviet tank (lid open). Cell phones have trended toward increasingly less tactile response, with slick metal/plastic cases and shallow buttons or flat touchscreens. Everything seems to be headed away from softer, natural materials and real physical character.

I think clearly there's a desire for that kind of character--the fashion of steampunk gadgetry indicates as much. I'm sympathethic to this quote from steampunk designer Alan Rorie at Make:

I would spend weeks and months working on my thesis and the result would be some bit of data that only existed on the computer and in the mind of my peers. I realized that I needed to create real objects, things and stuff that existed in the world.

I've felt the same way for a long time, which is why I didn't aim to become a programmer out of college--my experiences with it seemed unsatisfyingly intangible. But the more I look at these homemade victoriana, with its focus on brass and steel, the more I think it's a shame, frankly, that this particular fad has seized the imaginations of crafty techies. I'm not a back-to-nature kind of guy, but it seems like a more interesting set of challenges and materials would be to create sustainable electronics from renewable resources: wood, bamboo, glass, and light metals. Call it "greenpunk," if you will.

Some manufacturers have started putting these kinds of techniques to work. Fujitsu recently showed a concept for a wood-shelled laptop that incorporates its own carrying case into the frame. Nokia, meanwhile, has continued its green agenda with its own concept: a phone called the Remade constructed almost entirely from recycled materials. These are a start, and they are hopefully part of a trend toward more environmentally-friendly engineering, but they are focused primarily on making the same designs from new materials.

More interesting things--things which are identifiably "greenpunk" just as valves and rods are signifiers of steampunk--will happen when those materials begin serve as inspiration, and manufacturers begin to build with these kinds of aesthetics in mind, creating devices that are enjoyable to touch and use as much as they are currently fun to watch and interact with. Perhaps the best illustration of this goal is an excerpt from Idoru, by the always prescient William Gibson:

"I like your computer," she said. "It looks like it was made by Indians or something."

Chia looked down at her Sandbenders. Turned off the red switch. "Coral," she said. "These are turquoise. The ones that look like ivory are the inside of a kind of nut. Renewable."

"The rest is silver?"

"Aluminum," Chia said. "They melt old cans they dig up on the beach, cast it in sand molds. These panels are micarta. That's linen with this resin in it."

[...]

"It started with a woman who was an interface designer," Chia said, glad to change the subject. "Her husband was a jeweller, and he'd died of that nerve-attenuation thing, before they saw how to fix it. But he'd been a big green, too, and he hated the way consumer electronics were made, a couple of little chips and boards inside these plastic shells. The shells were just point-of-purchase eye-candy, he said, made to wind up in the landfill if nobody recycled it, and usually nobody did. So, before he got sick, he used to tear up her hardware, the designer's, and put the real parts into cases he'd make in his shop. Say he'd make a solid bronze case for a minidisk unit, ebony inlays, carve the control surfaces out of fossil ivory, turquoise, rock crystal. It weighed more, sure, but it turned out a lot of people liked that, like they had their music or their memory, whatever, in something that felt like it was there... And people liked touching all that stuff: metal, a smooth stone..."

Future - Present - Past