Computational Wood

Dr. Herb Smokler teaches us how to husband and harvest Computational Wood. Omitting he jerky production value of the video, one has to appreciate the inventive idea of treating trees with conductive ink over the seasons so that they become electrical circuits.

Imagine the sheer processing power of a rain forrest of computational wood. Is this the future of computing? Not sure. At least it is a funny and thought provoking statement on the often concealed omnipresence of digital technology in our surroundings.

This mockumentary is the final installment of Matt Cottam’s Masters thesis project called "In Search Of Heirloom Electronics"– I suspect it is a Masters of Arts and not a Masters of Science but one can never be sure nowadays. The concept of Computational Wood evolved out of a workshop with Timo Arnall, Matt Jones, Jack Schulze, Adam Greenfield, Lennart Andersson, and Mikael Wiberg.