Wall scanner

blablabLAB

23 August 2012

A blablabLAB backroom product

The paradigm par excellence of the obsolescent object is the multifunctional printer, those that incorporate the scanner function to the printing function.

It is known that, among other forms of programmed obsolescence, manufacturers define in the eprom (persistent) memory of the device its useful life, far below that achievable under normal use. Numerous solutions have been generated to reverse this through reverse engineering or other more empirical processes. But all these methods require procedures and techniques closer to DIY than to the widespread consumer culture of “buy, unpack/install, use”. The normal user is strongly influenced by this culture and adopting a DIY (Do It Yourself) attitude is too difficult.

Typically with multifunction printers the printer tends to become obsolete sooner, while the built-in scanner continues to work. Many users continue to use it until the purchase of a new printer becomes essential, which will result in a duplication of tools, as the new printer will also include a perhaps better scanner.

Wall Scanner is a software application capable of controlling the scanner system to generate movement patterns that give a second life to the device as a programmable or reactive ambient lighting system. The conversion of this device will not require in its final version any manipulation of the hardware or the core of the operating system, it aims to be multiplatform and easy to install and use. Therefore, being a project with a critical vocation, it uses the guidelines of a commercial product in a conscious and fundamental way.

This project is still in the research phase

Product of the line [augmented obsolescences].
“Planned obsolescence or planned obsolescence is the determination, planning or scheduling of the end of the useful life of a product or service so that – after a period of time calculated in advance by the manufacturer or service company during the design phase of the product or service – it becomes obsolete, non-functional, useless or unusable.” Wikipedia.

While for millennia we have managed to produce consumables with excellent performance, many of those produced today intentionally circumvent shelf life as a consumer right.
In this line of design is condensed the foundation of the current consumer system. The hyper-consumerist nature of today’s capitalism rebels through these ubiquitous products on a daily basis. It also transfers to the product, on its most material and formal scales, the unsustainable nature that this form of production-consumption projects on a global scale and in the medium term. There are numerous black spots where the detritus of this non-circulatory practice is condensed: nuclear waste dumps, oceanic macro-bags of plastic waste, electro-dumps of developed countries in underdeveloped countries, illegal dumping…
This form of production also acquires a self-propagating component under the idiosyncrasy of the laws of the free market, which extends and emphasises them.
Printers that stop working after a certain number of prints, light bulbs that blow out earlier and earlier, extremely fragile devices, etc. The day is probably not far off when real estate will also be traded according to this market strategy.

[augmented obsolescences] aims to explore this condition from non-commercial points of view.
A priori several heuristic practices are proposed from which to generate a prospective analysis, altering the life of objects to the point of absurdity, re-contextualising certain designs or behaviours, by mixing them, etc.
[augmented obsolescences] proposes an artistic view – analytical, critical, ironic – of a phenomenon that is as common and widespread as it is little known by consumers.