From Keyboard to Chessboard
From Mod Mania
http://www.busmanagementme.com/news/global-e-waste/
Today, we are living in a world in which there is an enormous consumption of technology and products related to it. Accordingly, in this ever-increasingly growing techno-world, there is this huge waste of technology related products. According to the UN Environment Program, the worldwide total for e-waste could be 50 million tons per year. [1] Influencing by that fact, I will re-use and modify a product which belongs to e-waste family.
In my project, which actually has its roots back than 2 years, I will create a chess set by modifying two keyboards to emphasize modification and re-use of a widely consumed e-waste. Before starting to mention about my project, I want to show some modifications made by re-use of keyboard and mainly their keys.
http://www.perpetualkid.com/recycled-keyboard-notebook.aspx
http://www.geekware.ca/blog/?p=303
http://www.recyclart.org/2009/02/keyboard-bag/
http://zedomax.com/blog/2007/05/03/keyboard-necklace/
Apart from these examples, you can find quiet a few of other examples of modified and re-used keyboards. Now, it is time to talk about my projects. Here are the materials and tools basically I used during the whole process.
1. Two keyboards(different coloured ones)
2. Cardboards(at least two different color)
3. Adhesive transparent PVC sticker paper
4. Screw driver
5. Glue
6. Scissors
Let’s start with how to do pieces like pawns, kings, bishops...First, keys from keyboard has to be removed.
Then, with those keys, different shape of pieces can be created by means of gluing them together. In my first examples, I tried to create some shapes look like well-known representations of chess pieces. However, I did not want to use them because of their bulky appearances.
Afterwards, I tried to shape pieces according to their direction of movements, but they did not satisfy me as well, due to my insufficiency to reflect all movements in a coherent way.
Finally, I found the way to shape my pieces. Actually, it was too basic: Using one single piece of key to represent pawns and assembling four pieces of them to create other pieces. In order to differentiate them, I used sticky letters corresponding to the first letter of the name of pieces. There was just one problem that the existence of two pieces starting with K; Knight and King. I solved this problem by using the uncommonly used alternative name of Knight-which is Horse.
Why this type of formation of pieces satisfied me have two answers. One of them is about the concept of keyboard in its functional use. It is something to write something. It has something to with letters. That is why using a letter based description of my key made chess pieces would be relevant to concept. Another answer is related to giving a connotation to my work. Keyboards are very physical part of technology and today, it might be a personal opinion but, we can see the stereotyping effect of technology on peoples, mostly relating to Internet. In other words, elimination of differences of formal aspects on pieces emphasizes the differences becoming vague between people, both in a positive and negative sense.
Since I completed the work with my chess, it is now time to create a chessboard to play on it. Once I have done with the removing keys from keyboards, I disassemble the keyboards themselves and found circuit sheets seem like possible to use for creating chessboards.
These circuit sheets, for me, have something valuable in terms of graphical quality and they really resemble something related to technology in my mind. I think they would be great for visualization of my chessboard.
Besides, I would be re-used another part from keyboards and modified it to my concept work. Therefore, I cut them in to square pieces and stick them onto a black cardboard. In order to differentiate each square, I also used stripes made from white cardboard to create some borderlines. As the final act, I used a transparent adhesive sheet to cover what I have just created to get a smoother surface which would make it easier to play on it and available to drag pieces easily which is very possible with my new kind of chess pieces.
Finally, I got both pieces and a chessboard to play on it. This is how they look when pieces on boards
As aforementioned before, the modification which is done here is not very related to functional aims. Indeed, turning a very symbolic and visual communication language into a written one, which is also restricted to the people assumed to know English, may make the playability of chess much more complex. What is aimed in this modification is to draw attention to drastically increasing e-wastes and their availability of re-use and necessity to re-cycle. In addition, a very personal criticism of stereotyping effect of technology is intended to be reflected on this project; even I cannot explain in which way clearly. Nonetheless, although it may be harder to play comparing to other chess sets, my chess set made of keyboards does not possess great obstacles to not enjoy from it.
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