thoughtsandtalks

Summer 2006, a few months after I met Mr. Vasu Srinivasan at the Luminous Green Symposium organised by foAM, I decided to develop a project on the Women Engineers of the Barefoot College and the Women of Tilonia.
Diving into the matter, I quickly made up that a documentary movie had to become the central issue in the project. My interest for the women Solar Engineers and the Mahila Samiti women of Tilonia comes out of a personal involvement that links art, women empowerment, ecology, technology and social engagement.

Introduced to the Barefoot College project, I was struck by certain similarities between my own relatively protected work environment and the specificities of the trainings/workshops in Rajasthan.

Brussels

Okno, a Brussels-based artist-run organisation for media, art and technology, focuses on social art and community-based technological research projects. To be more specific: current projects research the implementation of sustainable energies as solar/photovoltaic and wind energy in community-based city- and meshnetworks and public space art projects.
Belgian and international artists work together in a DIY-approach and during the decentralised workshops the sharing of knowledge is an important factor to come to valuable results.

Tilonia

The solar engineer training at Barefoot College, India has a similar structure: productivity results from collective work; the learning environment is open and decentralised and knowledge is passed on in a bottom-up and hands-on way.
From start on, the decision to step into the solar project is community-based. The village selects and delegates its future women engineers for a 6 months training, and every village family engages itself to pay its share in the remuneration of the engineers to set up and maintain the village solar system. January 2008 I went a first time to Barefoot College to meet and interview the solar engineers. There I discovered that the solar workshops are only a very small part in a much bigger story concerning the empowerment of the women in question.
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some documentation :: okno/code31 docuwiki
blowing in the wind :: Seeds & Fruits Dispersed By Wind

cagehappening at concertgebouw Brugge.

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performance for carillon: imaginary landscape nr.3
(soundquality: open-air recording with mobile phone)

I have nothing to say /
and I am saying it /
and that is poetry /
as I needed it.
[ John Cage :: lecture on nothing / silence ]

The training is non-structured and informal, incorporating on-the-job learning while earning.

- learning from doing and mutual interaction, not through formal classroom teaching
- emphasis on practical experience; little or no importance given to paper qualifications
- the belief is that the educational system today cannot judge the worth and value of persons. Passing exams, getting degrees is no guarantee that they are either valuable or necessary for the development of rural communities. The crucial question is: can they work with their hands?
- to prevent environmental degradation and to make communities sustainable, the answer is for them to finally depend on each other and use existing village skills for their own development.
- Tilonia’s role is to facilitate a process that allows for self reliance, self respect and dignity. It is not to increase dependency on urban professionals and skills. (more…)

Workshops
Through a series of workshops we will explore the wireless network, its technology, topology, implementation and usability. The series of workshops will be closing with a one week hands-on workshop where the participants will work together building a temporary wireless network, connecting clients to it and sending all sorts of data over the network.

mesh networks workshop: 21-27 january 2008
windpower workshop (DIY): 20-21 february 2008
closing workshop - artmeshnetwork: 19-26 april / st.erme, France

Self sustainable units
The unit(s) will be made self sustainable by the use of solar or wind power and because they are using wireless technology there is no need for any demand of infrastructure on the location(s) where these units will be positioned.
The location of the units is very important for the choice of the alternative energy source that will be used. In Brussels we should defenitely opt for the wind turbine (or a hybird system with solar) while on other locations solar would be a better choice.
Since we have 2 working units (for now), it would be good to rig one with a wind turbine and the other with a solar system.
In the case of a wind turbine the choice of which type of turbine depends on how steady the wind is on the location. When the winds are directional steady a horizontal turbine needs to be used, when there is a lot of turbulant wind a vertical turbine needs to be used. (more…)