2026
When visiting Ndaku Ya in Kinshasa I was amazed by the costumes and masks they made from waste, found onm the streets of Kinshasa. The masks themselves are of particular interest, I made photographs of some of them, and tried to recycle the masks themselves into my visuals for a live coding set later in Kinshasa. But how to give something back.. An idea formed around the concept of a wearable mask and recycled technology.
I've been working with hacked together brainmachines and I have made a more polished, version with wireless sync brainsyncglasses. What I did not do yet is source the parts from the streets and upcycle them to a working version. It would also fit the theme of the mask is some way.
drilling a hole in the upcycles Prada glasses. note to self, glass is hard...
Luckily I had some arduinos in the backpack, E-waste resistors and LEDs are litterally everywhere. I just need some tools, like to drill a hole in the glass and a soldering iron. Not to mention a helping hand to hold everything into place while soldering (thanks Tondji). So not that much later I had some (LED-only) brainsyncglasses, ready for beta testing (thanks again!)
There wasn't much time for beta-testing, but sure enough they worked well enough for taking along later that night. I returned the glasses to NDAKU YA where, after a live coding set, everyone could try some brainsync.
The glasses are fixed in a standard chill/relax program. It's one of the more accessible programs in the standard arduino patch I used to make this. Omitting the buttons and potentiometer I just set the variables inb the setup and be done with minimal code edits. I used white LEDs not ideal, buit they only ones I had at hand and the only ones that would stand the 5V from the logic pins with the resistors I could find...
finished glasses, ask to try them when you visit NDAKU YA.
I wonder how they will be recycled. As an artifact, embedded in new contraption, for parts or as an ornament... but they are no longer waste, they used to be Prada, but they are feeling much better now... I'm pretty sure.
