Electric Wonderland: The chilly willy of maker camps, run by wizards
From july 21 to 28, the 6th edition of Electric Wonderland took place in Baške Oštarije, Croatia. We follow the rabbit into Hobbiton, a camp full of makers, tinkerers and artists gathered to create and share their knowledge. Makery was there sketching their secrets.
Text and drawings by Roger Pibernat.
When landing in Wonderland, I was expecting a mad tea party, a caterpillar smoking a pipe, a grinning Chesire cat… but since logic is twisted in this side of the mirror, I found myself in the Shire hosted in a Hobbit wooden cart surrounded by Hobbit huts dug in the ground.
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Velebit camp is run by Luka, a streamer who met Radiona’s magicians when attending an OBS workshop they offered. Deborah Hustić is the Gandalf of Radiona’s makerspace. She’s a great storyteller. After the introductory session, a few of us stayed in the dome drinking home-made rakja while she explained how miserably the camp failed on the first edition, more than ten years ago; what was supposed to be a happy maker camp, turned into a survival experience during a very rainy week in the middle of the mud eating only cookies. She promised herself not to do another camp ever again. But a few years later, Uroš Veber, from Projekt Atol, offered to join the Rewilding Cultures project, and she accepted. “But I knew food had to be good, as I learned the hard way that it’s the most important part of the camp” she says. That’s why another Ana, the cook, served us delicious food all week long.
The dome where the introductory session and the storytelling happened was built during last year’s camp, in one week only (!) while there were ongoing projects and workshops. I heard it was tough, but the result is amazing. The dome is made out of wood; it’s fresh during hot days, warm on cool nights, dry in the rain and sounds astonishingly well. It is very cosy with carpets filling the floor. Here’s where the workshop tools would be set up during the whole week, and also where concerts happened. There were 3D printers, managed by magician Paula Bučar, a vinyl cutter run by Damir Prizmić, and soldering stations in charge of Tomi Tukša… Some of the workshops also ran here.The more dangerous laser cutter and dirty silkscreen printing were set up on a different hut by the solar showers.
Deborah explained that, in this edition, they programmed less workshops, as she wanted people to have time to work on their own projects without feeling pressure to attend too many activities. The last two editions were especially chaotic and intense and they felt they had to take it easier this year, although they had been told this was a very “chilly willy” camp compared to others like PIFcamp.
Radiona’s community
Deborah has given a lot to Radiona since the beginning, 14 years ago, and today the strategy is to let the Radiona community manage itself. She and some of the core team will now dedicate more time to projects devoted to inclusivity. Paula showed me the 3D model they are working on to make a mould to print illustrations for blind people. Also in the team will be Monika Pocrnjić, who I met in her hometown Maribor (Slovenia) a couple years ago, and who will be joining Radiona soon. Ana Horvat, a composer from Zagreb and unofficial co-founder of Radiona (she was away on vacation the day the papers were signed) is also part of this core. During the camp she helped Ana the cook with meal setup and other important management stuff.
The gender ratio is unusual for a maker environment. Deborah said they have never consciously done anything to create such a balance, it happened naturally. She thinks there may be two reasons for this: her, a woman, being the head of the party; and having workshops led by women. This may have contributed significantly to people joining the community.
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The daily routine started every morning with Monika’s body landscaping exercises. Related to this, she offered a workshop with Serbian Una Mladenović, where we learned how to use our body as an artistic medium by decorating it in different ways. Documentation (taking pictures) is how it is finally rendered.
Workshops ran after breakfast and lunch. Some of them started with a session but were ongoing during the week, like Fox Hunt, where we soldered wifi mini devices that would later be hidden around the camp and people would hunt with their phones. We also built FM receivers that we used to listen to the local radio broadcasted from a local FM transmitter. T-shirt printing with silk screens built with the vinyl-cutter happened mostly by the end of the week.
Sandra Maglov set up a workshop of Mobile Holder Monsters made out of cardboard. Dimitra Barouta taught us the very basics of mobile photography, with useful tips for seasoned and newbies alike. Ana Horvat gave a lecture on freak composers, which was followed by Deborah’s findings and thoughts on her research on her family tree using DNA.
All this creativity was fueled with a special brand of chocolate bars that have become a tradition; it’s the electrons of Electric Wonderland. Everyone made sure that there was always enough supply.
DIY post-apocallyptic antidepressant pills
Vito Menjak and Tomi Tukša offered a workshop on off-grid pharmacy. Vito told us about plants found around the camp that we could use for different healing purposes, while we drank local herb-tea and smoked local-herb cigarettes. Tomi taught us how to create post-apocallyptic antidepressant pills from cell batteries (dead or alive), extracting the lithium chloride contained in them. First, we carefully opened the batteries with wire cutters to get the lithium out. We then soaked it in water one by one, waiting for the bubbles to calm down. Mixing vinegar and baking soda we generated CO~2~ that we added to the mix through a pipe into the lithium water, converting it to Lithium Chloride. When the liquid was PH neutral enough, which we checked with a paper strip, Tomi filtered it through a funnel to extract the dust that would make the pill. He said that it’s not realistic to use this process to get the amount of lithium chloride needed for a proper antidepressant dose, but it’s very interesting nonetheless, and after the apocalypse we may have all the time in the world. If not, the sole act of extracting it is very soothing.
Igor Brkić showed us the ins and outs of KiCAD, an open source PCB design software, which we wouldn’t need for Stefanie Wuschitz’s clay PCBs. Stefanie is an Austrian artist who came with her children. The little one spent most of the time decorating her own skin and that of other campers with crayons. Stefanie gave an introductory lecture on her research for alternatives to plastic and copper PCBs. After the talk, we went to hunt clay at the top of the hill behind the camp, where a tree had fallen exposing underground soil full of mud. We gathered clay stones that we later smashed with hammers and filtered with colanders to turn into clay dust, while sitting and chatting like maybe our ancestors did. By adding water we created clay balls that we later flattened and stamped with a 3D-printed mould of an electronic circuit. After they dried up overnight, Stefanie cooked them on the fire, and filled the holes from the mould with copper tape, instead of the usual home-made silver ink she normally uses. The circuit allows the soldering of pre-programmed Attiny and external components that can be soldered on the pads. Stefanie’s research looks for more sustainable and feminist ways of doing electronics with materials available on site, but this PCB making technique not only connects electronic components: it also connects people, building community.
Melma et al.
At the camp there was also Servando Barreiro, a nomad musician originally from Galicia (Spain), who has been in Stockholm for the last couple of years. He provided the soundtrack to the camp throughout the week with his portable setup, which includes an Organelle — an electronic synth-like instrument that he programmed by himself— and two bluetooth speakers. Audience curiosity spontaneously ended in an improvised Organelle workshop on the first evening. He didn’t bring his guitar because of packing optimization, but Luka, the camp owner, let him use his. Servando (who sometimes calls himself Sir Random) came to perform with Melma, an ensemble from Milan that makes visuals with a set of two microscopes that feed a TouchDesigner (a visual plateform) patch from mobile phones attached to their lenses. The visual effects are controlled with a MIDI device.
Melma is formed by three artists and a dog: Zoe Romano, Alex Piacentini, Giacomo Silva and Onda. Alex and Giacomo are designers and have started a publishing project. Zoe has a background in philosophy, but she started a makerspace after quitting Arduino, where she had worked for a few years during its beginnings. Giacomo said he likes Zoe’s philosophical approach to everything she does, and Alex’s technical expertise and the passion he puts into the projects. Alex is very curious and open-minded, continually asking questions to people about their projects and knowledge, while sharing his own.
Talks with Zoe were deep and very interesting. She was reading a book about decolonizing through mushrooms. Very appropriate read while being at Wonderland. She told me the story of hacker/maker spaces and the difference with fablabs. We also discussed gender (un)balance in the maker scene, which may be due to cultural sabotage, as women tend to be more perfectionist and self-demanding, not allowing themselves to fail in front of an audience; as opposed to men, who are more relaxed about it, probably because of embedded unconscious cultural heritage.
Melma’s performance on Friday night was great. The next evening they decided to jam again and it was even better. We laid down on the dome’s carpeted floor with blankets and pillows in front of the custom built screen they had hung from the dome’s ceiling; the image was duplicated on the outside, projected on the exterior dome surface for the campers to enjoy. We listened to Servando’s cool and mesmerising sounds on Zoe’s new semi-modular synth, while watching beautiful trippy microlife that Zoe, Alex, and Giacomo had gathered around the camp during the previous days. At one point, Onda came to lie on the ground with us.
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Thursday was the day off. Some people went to the beach, others stayed in the camp, and I joined the hiking group, guided by Tomislav Mikić, a young bird-watcher who led us up and around the Velebit range from where we could enjoy great views of the surrounding mountains and not-so-distant coast full of islands. Onda also joined the pack and herded us all the way, making sure no one was left behind or went too fast. She struggled a bit while climbing down a specially difficult rocky step, but she eventually managed to overcome it. Overall, she climbed up and down the rocks five more times than all of us put together.
Once back in the camp, we chilled for the rest of the day, getting ready for the final days of making.
All very chilly willy.
Electric Wonderland is organised by Radiona with the support of the Rewilding Cultures program, co-funded by the European Union. Roger Pibernat is Makery’s resident columnist for Rewilding Cultures during the summer of 2024.