User:Martina/T6 Assessment
Special issues + their relevance to the graduation project
Special Issue #25: Playing with and modifying a rotary phone to perform a different function helped remove the intimidation I felt around exploring hardware. I discovered the value of tinkering, taking devices apart and understanding how they work. This curiosity has remained a central part of my practice and became a key aspect of my graduation project. Looking back, I think that without this early introduction to basic circuitry, I would not have developed the confidence that eventually led me to create my low-tech radio wave receivers.
Special Issue #26: Main reflection: imagining altered webpages as weaving patterns. Connecting the structure of the web with textile pattern making led me to explore how physical practices, such as quilting, could be translated into digital environments (through the webring).
Special Issue #26: Using my previous practice in traditional mediums (textiles), I explored ways to translate them into the digital. This was the first project where I allowed myself to reintroduce earlier making methods into XPUB. The project marked the beginning of an exploration that I later describe in my graduation research as "the bending of the material" - finding different materials to print on in order to enhance the translation or merging of material worlds.
Special Issue #27: The visit to the Telecom museum was extremely inspiring, especially looking at the massive cabling infrastructure they had set up in the basement. What also intrigued me was the chronology of the communication narrative and see it change in materiality (cabling methods, using paper, tin can methods, telcom services, telephones, mobile phones). Apart from my personal interest, seeing all of these devices and ways of telling the buildings history somehow inspired my own research (especially in the visual storytelling part of the thesis).
Reading + writing practice
My personal reader is my Are.na account! I found myself collecting a lot of visual material and texts related to:
- scanned and archival documentation
- website playgrounds
- historical timekeeping devices
- preservation methods
- future archaeologies
- sonic fieldwork
- repurposing old technologies for new purposes
- radio
I think these interests intertwine and often merge around themes of preservation, archival studies, material investigation, and speculation.
The process of writing the thesis led me to discover a new appreciation for writing. It also made me feel more comfortable speaking introspectively about my work. I was quite doubtful of my writing during my Bachelor's, as my tutors had expressed multiple times that it was not academic enough. I remember feeling this fear at the beginning of the second year. However, by the time I submitted my thesis, I felt much more confident in expressing my work through writing.
The thesis and its development made me appreciate writing as a new medium I want to explore further. I now have multiple copies of chapter drafts, all scribbled with corrections and handwritten additions. Somehow, I see these many iterations similar to those many experiments made in prototyping. Rather than viewing writing as a way of documenting a project, I began to see it as a form of making and inquiry.
Prototyping
The first year allowed me to explore many different techniques and mediums. The ones that stayed with me most were basic coding practices and sound-making devices. I continued to develop these interests by applying this new knowledge through a public collective coding and sonic fieldwork session (February 2025). Alongside this, I further explored the notion of fieldwork during the residency Beyond What Drifts Us Apart (September 2025), where I made DIY microphones, stamps for texture mapping, and sieves for speculative archaeological exploration. Both the workshop and the residency functioned as spaces for practice, without the pressure of producing a final outcome. In that sense, they became valuable forms of prototyping with different publics and testing ideas in new contexts.
Throughout these two years, I remained open to a multidisciplinary way of working. I have always connected with the idea of being "a jack of all trades, master of none". I am always curious, and I allow this curiosity to linger across different practices rather than committing to a single discipline.
Prototyping has made me appreciate the value of time, particularly the importance of taking time with my work rather than rushing the process. Having multiple iterations, sketches, and experiments often makes me feel more confident about the outcome. The final outputs become clearer, and I gain a better understanding of both the work itself and the process that led to it.
Thesis + publication
‘A Familiar Materiality: Merging the material worlds of crafts and communication technology’
My thesis looks for parallels between the making processes of craft and communication technology. Familiarity with materiality of both craft and electronic devices results in lowering the barriers of learning new skills in both fields by looking into the workings of crystal radio.
It talks about:
- The similar roles of radio and craft were very prominent while I was growing up.
- Observing how the need for communication emerged in ways that parallel craftsmanship.
- Craft as a self-sustaining practice, mentioning DIY repair culture while also reflecting on the disappearance of craft in favor of fast consumables in Malta.
- The metaphor of 'the spin', as a way to understand the cycles of crafting, kin and electronic manufacturing.
The overall tone and narrative of the thesis writing were very much connected to my project, and I see them almost as part of the same making process. After submitting the thesis, I knew I wanted to design a printed version of it, keeping in mind the motion of the hand coiling that I talk about throughout the thesis.
The printed thesis includes more visual imagery, alongside drawings that I made for each chapter and subchapter. Each drawing foreshadows something that is discussed in that section.
I really enjoyed returning to drawing, not as a form of procrastination, but because I began to treat these drawings as small diagrams. By drawing these scenes, objects, and electronic components, I felt that I could understand them better.
The thesis is hand-bound using copper wire, keeping the project's main material present within the written component as well. In doing so, it bends the conventions and limitations of traditional bookbinding.
Overall 2nd year research thoughts
- Initially, I was very interested in making DIY tools (such as recording devices, microphones, printers/markers) for other people, especially thinking about how these self-made tools could be made more accessible for people to use in their own artistic practice or research. This motivation became particularly strong after returning from my residency in September 2025.
- Given how collective and community-driven my practice was before XPUB, I realised that I had forgotten to ask myself what I wanted from this research and what questions I wanted to answer. By looking at my family stories, their hobbies, and their ways of building knowledge, I began to focus on crafting techniques and electronic tinkering, paying closer attention to the similarities between them. Eventually, I narrowed my research down to DIY radio wave receivers, as they share a similar hands-on approach to making as Maltese crafts such as Ganutell.
- From there, a fascination with communication devices grew, particularly with their materiality. I also wanted to approach my intimidation around learning electronics by applying understandings that already felt familiar through craft. The research became an opportunity to face that challenge and use it as a way of learning something new.
- A small note about the try-out nights: both sessions were a great way to test these physical experiments with a public. I noticed that many people were curious about the copper coils and the combination of different materials present in the installation. Beyond this, I was also really pleased by the interest people showed in the family stories I shared in my thesis. Somehow, when I explained how these stories related to the project, people seemed to understand the work more deeply. At the same time, many opened up about their own first encounters with radio, or about learning a craft themselves. I valued these conversations because they showed me that people could still connect with the materials and narratives, even if they had not shared the same experiences. There was a sense of familiarity that emerged through the stories and objects, creating unexpected points of connection.
Grad show!
A Familiar Materiality is a project which explores the merging of the material worlds of traditional craft and communication technology, specifically DIY radio wave receivers. By applying familiar handicraft techniques to the making of radio receivers, the project investigates how the function and perception of these objects alter through the materials used in their construction. Growing up alongside my family’s contrasting hobbies of textile work and radio-making, I developed a familiarity with both practices. Through a series of prototype receivers, the project brings these worlds together, with each object intertwining its own narrative through the materials and techniques it draws upon.
- I am currently constructing a shelf built entirely from recycled wood and free wooden furniture. One part of it is a shoe rack, one section was donated by Kamo, and the top part was originally an open shelf for my paintbrushes that I used ten years ago. The rest is made from wood that was left in the trash bunker at WDKA. This practice of collecting found materials and scraps goes hand in hand with the second chapter of my thesis, where the accumulation of materials becomes a way of resource-finding for DIY assembly and crafting.
- The other components currently connecting the smaller pieces of the shelf together are recycled copper wire and cables taken from the bin at Interaction Station, along with many other cables that I have collected (with more soon to come).
- The idea is to bind copper coils to different parts of the shelf while connecting them all to the same circuitry, which will connect to an amplifier and headphones. Visitors will be able to listen to signals being picked up in the space and experiment with how the placement of copper affects the signal. For example, does the signal become weaker or stronger when the copper is coiled around the edge of the shelf?
- Some aspects of the construction are also inspired by my father's radio-making documentation, parts of which will be exhibited as images printed on fabric. These will resemble a photo album and draw on familiar materials and techniques, such as fabric and embroidery.
- I plan to install wheels so that people can move the shelf around and pick up different signals during my interactive presentation on Saturday the 4th.
☆The future☆
This graduation project feels like the beginning of a larger exploration. Over the coming year, I would like to continue this research by dedicating more time to developing a few larger and more concrete radio experiments, possibly combining it as a workshop format for the public.
A few months ago, I had the opportunity to be interviewed by Waag, where I spoke about my material experiments with crystal radio. The interview was included in their radio mesh networks guide.
XPUB has given me new insights into different mediums that I can explore within my practice. Beyond that, it has introduced me to a new community. I will continue to cherish the discussions I have shared over the past two years and hope to keep having with my classmates in the future. Doing the master's has also helped me develop a stronger ability to structure my working process, whether through prototyping, reflecting on the many iterations of an experiment, or setting internal deadlines for myself.
What comes next?!
I am happy to say that things look busy after graduation! I have recently been awarded a CBK fund and a Culture Moves Europe grant to develop an upcoming project and exhibition in Malta this September. The project will explore and speculate on the idea of the farmer's toolshed and its tools, responding specifically to the site of Għar il-Kbir, an unprotected cave in Malta.
Alongside this, I will be launching a collective publication with MaMA in December, making public our two-year research process on accessibility within museum spaces.