Can we repurpose motherboards into soft machines? 

If you’re interested in what happens when we choose to explore our relationship with technology — rather than surrendering to the abstractions of clouds, drives, and docs — then this workshop is for you. 

Words and Wires brings together two seemingly distant worlds: creative writing and digital technologies, prose and processors, words and wires. The bridge between them is materiality. 

Working in small groups, participants will be guided to build and customise a cyberwriter together. A cyberwriter is a self-built, portable, distraction-free writing device, constructed here from old e-readers and thrifted materials. 

Through this shared process of making, the workshop becomes a space to reflect,  through dialogue and writing, on our relationship to the digital tools that shape creative practice, while speculating on technological futures grounded in materiality, care, slowness, intimacy, and skill-sharing. 

The build is hands-on and intended for people with some form of writing or creative practice, with little to no experience in tinkering or coding. We will provide crafting kits with instructions, materials, and decorations to build and personalise your collective cyberwriters. The (un)finished cyberwriters and creative writing reflections may later be exhibited or used in future workshops. 

Words and Wires is selected through the Open Call for Unexpected Combinations as part of the month-long program Buro Relays in 2026. More info on the Open Call can be found here: https://burostedelijk.nl/events/open-call-events