The EMF noticeboard, covered in papers.

I learned about Electromagnetic Field from various mastodon posts. I never thought I’d choose to go camping, but the enthusiasm for both technology and art and the overlap between the two really called to me. Unfortunately, by this time the tickets were sold out, so I begrudgingly let go of the idea of attending. Then, just over two weeks before the event, I was able to aquire a ticket from a random release of tickets that had been returned. I was going to EMF, and I was full of excitement and anxiety.

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I could count the number of times that I’ve camped in the last ten years on one hand, and I wouldn’t even need most of the fingers, so I had to research and buy everything a person needs for camping. Plus, I was going on the train, so it all had to fit in one wheelie bag and one backpack, the most that I felt able to carry on the train. That meant that a lot of stuff that I wanted to bring had to be cut, including several fun outfits that I wanted to bring for null sector, and any laptop larger than my miniature Surface Go. I was a little worried about that last one, but it turned out that I would have hardly used it anyway, as I was far too busy to be coding.

A sign saying "This sign is intentionally left blank"

The list of talks was what initially drew me to EMF. I love presentations from passionate people about niche interests, and the range of topics at EMF is so wonderfully rich. My favourite talks that were recorded (I recommend giving them a watch at https://media.ccc.de/c/emf2026):

  • Infrastructure Review
  • RSRE Flex: reviving an innovative, remarkably odd British operating system that almost nobody knows about
  • Scientifically ruining the interfaces in children’s shows
  • The Orphan Source Incident
  • Breaking in to buildings with boobs
  • What’s in a number plate?

I still have a lot more that I want to watch!

And to show my appreciation for a few that I enjoyed in-person, but that were not recorded:

  • Tango 22: The Most Haunted Railway Signal in England
  • Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss: Breaking Minecraft’s Decentralised Chat Reporting System
  • EMF Variety Night

A small model of Jupiter I loved these tiny planet models so much.

I love exchanging stickers with people, so I took a lot of stickers to give out and put in exchanges. I stuck stickers on a great many things that were obviously welcoming them. I definitely recommend getting some stickers printed. You can see all the stickers I got from others below, along with other bits and pieces I picked up over the event.

Stickers, postcards, badges, and miscellanea laid out on a table.

On Sunday, I realised that I hadn’t met all that many new people; I’d only managed some brief chats in queues. So, for the final third of the event, I took all of the opportunities that I could find to meet new people! Next time, I want to dedicate more time to talking to people, from the start. Even though people at EMF are very friendly, it’s hard to tell who is looking to talk to new people and who is just trying to hang out with their friends. Meetups seem like the best way to ensure that people are open to conversations, so I may look to host one of these myself if there aren’t too many.

A suspended dot matrix screen showing part of a mastodon handle

I was very excited about all of the games at EMF that involved finding a physical Thing, interacting with it by tapping / plugging in, and thus collecting Points.

My stats:

  • 4 duck befriending points: I was charmed by the NFC ducks whereever I was able to make their acquaintance, but it was just too hot to try to find them! This score put me at 136th on the leaderboard. (https://duckfriend.online/)
  • 19 GCHQ.NET captures: This puts me at 152nd on the leaderboard, with 310 points. I would have liked to have found more, but again, the heat, and I didn’t manage to get my tildagon until a few days in, which limited the number I was able to capture. It’s fun to see the difficulty ratings on each location on the website! (https://gchq.net/)
  • PolyGen: I was team Chimeratech Corporation, and dutifully flipped all units I saw to them, so I hope they won! I bought a hexpansion with Chimeratech’s logo, and since I was able to acquire this before the tildagon, I was able to start playing quite soon into the event. It also created some fun lightly-competitive spirit when immediately flipping a unit from another team. However, I haven’t had luck with trying to log in to their website or see the scores, so I’m not even sure who won, in the end! I’d like to find out, if anyone knows. (https://gen.polyb.io/)

A LED rope with a sign for Glow Golf Glow Golf: One-dimensional golf, played using a door handle.

I struggled a lot with the weather. It was almost unbearably hot, and I missed a lot of things I would have liked to see because I just couldn’t stand to be outside, or to walk across the site again at in the hottest hours of the day. Next time I’ll definitely be bringing one of those reflective umbrellas that I saw people with, but in this kind of heat I just needed to accept that some things weren’t happening.

A low quality photo of the entrance to "Polybius Biotech" containers, with a sign saying "Rebel takeover in progress, return tomorrow" A low quality photo of lasers in the sky Null Sector

I’m no photographer, and I have been known to delight in taking somewhat crunchy images. I tried not to take too many; just enough to jog my memory of the event, without letting my brain switch to record-everything-mode.

Ceefax on a CRT A hanging receipt printer, printing receipts into a pile on the floor"

I returned home from EMF filled with renewed energy and enthusiasm for new projects. This time, I didn’t have the preparation time to create something for EMF (I was rushing to be ready to go at all), but next time, I’d like to! Tinkering with the tildagon seems like a good place to start. :]