A hands-on tools sharing session where participants will explore how easy and fun it is to build interactive interfaces from techno-trash and conductive material.
Make your own game controller or instrument!

Broken microwaves hum with haunted syntax. Plastic cables twitch with residual signals. LED fragments flicker like afterimages of machine dreams. Within these discarded systems, something lingers…

This workshop unfolds as part of the artist research project: Phantasmagoria, an ongoing investigates of the ecological and material afterlives of generative AI systems. Behind every “immaterial” system lies an infrastructure of extraction, energy consumption, and eventual decay. Devices are abandoned, data centers expand, and invisible processes leave very real traces.

Here, the technological trash heap becomes a site of reanimation and inquiry: a speculative landscape where the ghosts of computation—forgotten datasets, obsolete hardware, and fragmented intelligences—continue to circulate. During this workshop, you are invited to make contact.

Using conductive scraps and your own hands, you will build a ritual interface: a hacked-together button. Each press becomes an invocation—triggering sound, text, or image from generative systems or your own collected data. Through this process, we reconnect the seemingly immaterial outputs to their physical, ecological substrates.

PARTICIPANTS WILL LEARN

* Basic hacking strategies to repurpose existing electronics
* How to make a button from unconventional materials / anything conductive!
* How to code an interaction from a button with Makey Makey in Processing (play audio, generate images, text – whatever you dream of!)

The goal is not to build “useful” tools, but to have fun and open portals: to listen to the broken, flickering parts of systems we once tried to abandon.
Let the rogue voices in the trash heap sing again! 🙂

USEFUL INFO FOR PARTICIPANTS

– Bring your own laptop/computer and any conductive material or techno-junk you want to revive: broken electronics, stray cables, haunted buttons.
There will also be some material present to work with! 🙂
– If you want to take your circuit with you the price of the Makey Makey is 230 hkd. You can repurpose this easily for your own projects!
– For the workshop, you will work with processing.org, please install the software beforehand
– Due to limited quota, reservations of the workshop beyond the first EIGHT will be placed on a waiting list. Successful applicants will be notified by 27 April. Should any successful applicants be unable to attend, Videotage will notify applicants on the waiting list separately.

來動手製作自己的遊戲手掣或儀器吧！參加者可着手把玩工具，分享利用科技碎片和導電物料製作互動介面的簡易樂趣。

失靈的微波爐低吟着鬼魅般的語句；數據訊號殘存在塑膠電線的扭結間；LED 燈閃鑠着如機器夢境般的殘像；一種難以名狀的氣息穿梭在這些棄置的系統間⋯⋯

工作坊為藝術家進行中的「魅影劇場」計劃一部份，計劃旨在審視生成式人工智能生態和物質上的來生。每套「無形」的系統背後，都有一套開採、消耗能源和自然淘汰的硬件基建。當儀器被棄置、數據中心再擴張、以至未曾公開的的運算過程，統統留下可觀的痕跡。

被遺忘的數據集、過時硬件、人工智能的碎片——種種運算的鬼魂仍浮游在科技垃圾堆中，構成重生和叩問的場域。工作坊誠邀你重返現場，與它們進行另類接觸。

透過重用導電廢料，你將親手搭建招魂儀式的舞台：一顆改裝拼湊而成的按鈕。每下按鍵將是一種祈求，從生成式系統或自己收集的數據中，觸發聲音、文字或圖像，將看似莫名其妙的輸出重新連接到物質和生態上的土壤。

參加者將學到：
– 侵入機器內部的基本方式，有助重用舊裝置
– 如何透過出奇的物料或任何導電物品，製作按鈕
– 如何使用 Processing 軟件編寫按鈕程式，操控 Makey Makey 電路板（例如播放聲音、生成圖像與文字，用途隨你所想）

留意工作坊並非旨在製作「實用」工具，而是把玩舊有裝置，打開與它們對話的空間，傾聽這些瀕臨廢棄的器具的破落低語。讓這些垃圾堆中的怪聲詠唱吧！

參加者須知：
– 請自備（手提）電腦及任何可導電的物料，或你想重新喚醒的科技碎片，例如廢電器、多餘電線、失靈按鈕等。同場亦有少量材料可供試玩！
– 參加者可以 230 元港幣，將工作坊的 Makey Makey 電路板帶回家，輕鬆融入你的創作中！
– 工作坊將使用編程教學軟件 Processing，請預先在官方網站（processing.org）下載。
– 由於工作坊名額有限，除首八名參加者外，其餘登記將進入候補名單。成功登記者將於4月27日前收到通知。若有成功登記者未能出席，錄影太奇將另行通知候補名單的登記。

Date | 日期：02.05.2026（Sat 六）
Time | 時間：14:30–17:00
Venue | 地點：V54（54 Village Road, Happy Valley 香港跑馬地村道54號）
Quota | 名額：Eight 八名（registration is needed, see here 需預先報名，見此）

No prior hacking experience needed, but welcome! 不論黑客新手或專家，無任歡迎

Presented by | 主辦: Videotage 錄映太奇
Supported by | 資助：Stimuleringfonds
Venue Sponsor | 場地支援：V54 (IG @ycac.plk)