Brendan Howell

Projects
The Screenless Office

The Screenless Office is a system for working with media and networks without using a pixel-based display. It is an artistic operating system.

Most of the interaction takes place using printed output and barcodes. There is also a document camera that allows hand-composed input for publication, recording or personal communication. Some experimental hardware controller modules are in development.

The office presents a radically alternative form of everyday human interaction with media. It is constructed using free/libre/open hard- and software components, especially for print, databases, web-scraping and tangible interaction. Currently, it exists as a working prototype with software “bureaus” which allow a user to read and navigate news, web sites and social media entirely with the use of various printers for output and a barcode scanner for input. While our existing software allows for interesting new ways of consuming media, we are currently working to expand the system to make it capable of publishing content and thereby, enabling a provocative possibility for active participation in contemporary social life.

The Screenless Office is Free Software. You may find more information at the main project web site and the code here. It is currently very poorly documented but there is a lot more in the works, with a plan to publish in the beginning of 2022.

A Printed Custom Newspaper
Twitter Feed on Reciept Paper