Vektorkollektor

Vektorkollektor is a participative installation with which people can draw images using a joystick. It is built in the form of a playful hand truck that can be moved around to collect images. We made Vektorkollektor with Niklas during the Dialogfelder residency program by Klub Solitaer e.V. in Chemnitz, Germany. The program focused on urban space, digitalisation and participation. With its movable character the Vektorkollektor addressed the 2021 residency theme, Drag & Drop, as we dragged Vektorkollektor in the city and dropped it to different locations to collect drawings.

The drawing mechanism of Vektorkollektor is based on an 80s plotter, which we received as a donation from xHain. The mechanical parts of the plotter were mounted on the hand truck and received new electronics, which were controlled via an Arduino microcontroller. With this set up, people can make felt-tip pen drawings on A3-sized paper using a joystick. The created images are also saved as coordinates on an SD card. While the creators can take the paper versions of the drawings home, the saved pictures are also published in an open archive at vektorkollektor.com. In the archive you can also see how the images were drawn, while listening to the chiptune-style soundtrack, which was curated for us by Kokoro.

We visited several places in Chemnitz with Vektorkollektor such as Nischel, Stadhallenpark, Schloßteichpark, playgrounds and a skate park. In addition to making the drawings, we asked everyone to give a title for their picture. This metadata was noted down using a vintage Robotron typewriter, a piece of history familiar to many locals. The titles of the drawings can also be found in the Vektorkollektor archive.

Vektorkollektor turned out to be a very fun and social project, which involved both spontaneous encounters with people as well as collaborations with local colleagues. For example, we collaborated with Tortuga e.V. and Zietenaugust neighbourhood garden to paint some of the collected drawings on walls with Niklas's big spray can plotter. Meanwhile, Mario Voigt from the local FabLab created an extension for Inkscape for converting the vectors into Scalable Vector Graphics (SVGs). Ines Eisinger also made artistic documentation of Vektorkollektor. Together with our local colleagues we even created enigmatic Vectorscope cards (PDF in German), with which it is possible to find out your personal vector sign based on birth month, shoe size and number of drunken beverages. The cards were pretty popular for a while at the community hangout place, Späti, on Zietenstraße.

Later on Vektorkollektor has visited various events such the R.o.R. Festival in the Nova Gorica area in Slovenia and the Fliegendes Künstlerzimmer program in Frankfurt am Main in Germany. In Berlin we have also shown it at the digiS-Jahreskonferenz at Zuse-Institut and the Architektenkammer Berlin summer party. Vektorkollektor has also partly inspired Niklas' other drawing machine for the project Maschinenmosaik.

See also:

• Photo album of Vektorkollektor
• Documentation on Niklas' website