I first saw an Electric Objects screen in Kevin Slavin's apartment in Brooklyn at some point at the turn of the century. It was a prototype, discretely leaning against a wall. My memory is that it was showing something like Murakami flowers, but Kevin might well be outraged by that suggestion.
That apartment was a wonderful place. Kevin was kind enough to host us a few times and it was always an adventure. I explored New York from there, made friends, panic-bought board games, stole street signs. But seeing the EO1 was also part of the mystique. It was very New York. Tasteful, discrete, black-framed, exclusive, more expensive than you could imagine. It was like a Supreme drop but technology.
It was of course, also just a tiny Android computer inside a screen. But what isn't? It was packaged imaginatively. Someone had thought hard about creating an art experience around a screen.
So, eventually, they went on sale and I bought one at great expense and it was shipped to the UK.
It's sat on our shelves at home for many years. I would add images to it every now and then. The rest of the family regarded it with the same amused tolerance they keep for everything else I do. Pointlessly connected technology is a hobby for me. I collect things that eventually, inevitably won't work in the same way other people collect pottery owls.
But the EO1 just kept going. Nabaztags failed. Little Printers failed. The EO1 ploughed on. Partly because, what could go wrong? It was a tiny computer, a screen, an internet connection.
Turned out what could go wrong was the business model. There weren't enough people like me out there. Electric Objects got bought by Giphy with promises to keep it alive. And yes, it lived. Though 'keeping it alive' felt more like 'not killing it'.
But still, I could add images and display them. That's all I really wanted. It came a little into its own during Lockdown One. It was amusing to create ever-changing backdrops for Zoom calls.
And then it died. The screen just puttered for a while and then wouldn't come back on. There is no easily-googlable source for getting an EO1 repaired. For time being I've chucked it into storage. It felt too wasteful to throw it away.
What to do? I liked the thing. Being an idiot I set up an ebay alert to see if people were selling off their old ones. And, the other week an EO2 showed up. Exciting! All still in the original packaging. Not too much money.
And then I discovered that the app you need to get the thing onto your wifi is no longer in the App Store. And there's, apparently, no other way to connect it. Various reddit users have found various workarounds but none of them worked for me. So I bought a cheap Android phone because, also apparently, the old android app is still in the store. And it was! But then that didn't work because the way that Android phones connect to bluetooth devices is now different than it was.
So now I have two EO screens that don't work.
Ah well.
Now I just have to wait until an artisanal repair culture for connected devices emerges. I imagine the first clue will be someone showing up at The Repair Shop with a Nabaztag.
(Is that a YouTube channel yet? The Gen X Repair Shop? It will be soon. Lots of old Nokias and Minidisc players.)
