If Law had a Handle...

This is the starting point for my Final Project research. It begins from my own pre-conceptions about the intangiblilty and inaccessibility of 'law'. And then my notions of 'technologically interfacing' with this concept - proposing a new way to handle 'law' or get a handle on 'law'.

Establishing a different relationship to 'law'.

Does the handle access 'law'?
Does the handle interpret 'law'?

If Law had a Handle...

What would it feel like? texture/media

a mechanism?
a material?

a clinical mechanism/simple/elegant/futuristic mechanism:

Hart, H.L.A. (1994) The Concept of Law. Oxford University Press
ALL RULES HAVE A PENUMBRA OF UNCERTAINTY - installation light/shadow/penumbra/focus
- lines/boundaries/zone
- subtlety/seriousness

a victorian (steampunk) over-engineered British mechanism:

example: http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/05/gorgeous_irising_peephole_mechanism.html
public clock
- escapement, iterating, regulating
weather vane
lightening rod
RADAR
wheels/pulleys/sound/screens
2nd World War nostalgia, home guard, dads army

an insensibly direct OTT stop-button type mechanism:

one press, on/off, lever, like on train “do not press!”
example: Police call for remote button to stop cars http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2003/dec/21/transport.ukcrime

a brutal violent slaughterhouse mechanism

meat slicer, shredder, weaponry?
example: Kafka: In the Penal Colony ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StwAGxbPxlU )
cantankerous / dangerous / erratic / Terry Gilliam /Jean-Pierre Jeunet
mechanically reclaimed law

IDEA: Combine Escapement and Penumbra?

device falls out of focus recalibrates self (servo-mechanism)
- looks like James Bond start!
  - example self-correcting table device http://origamata.com/?p=1

What would it do? What is the function?

of the device?

indicator - like flag?
public realm experiment?
self-contained demonstration

of the handle?

engage relationship
- notification
- introduces 'tic' - technologically interfacing citizen
  - example Improvised Empathetic Device (in FACTs MyWAR) - http://www.swamp.nu/projects/ied
- introduces 'ticl' - technologically interfacing citizen:law
change relationship (next step)
- consumers-to-producers
- Leverage

of 'law'?

determine law with relation to OWN values ie: cycle/loop/feedback
- re-constitute
- like sausage machine ( mechanically reclaimed law )
binary 'coding' legal/illegal
- zoning in/out
legislation = iteration (feedback)
case law - interpretation, precedent