Posts tagged hacking

Call for Projects: Interactivos? Hack the City - Current and Future Needs (due May 20, Dublin)

Hacking has always been associated with innovative appropriations of existing resources, re-engineering, working below the radar, and modifying structures to reap new benefits. What happens if you take the philosophy of hacking and apply it to the urban environment? When you consider innovative ways to harness the flows of energy, data and people that pass through the city every day? That is what will be done at Interactivos ‘12 in Dublin.

Project proposals due May 20. Interactivos?’12 Dublin: Hack the City. Current and Future Needs, July 11–26, 2012, Dublin, Ireland.

Read the full call here: http://medialab-prado.es/article/cfp_interactivos_dublin_12

Aca-article: “We are all hackers now” - critical sociological reflections on the hacking phenomenon

Hacking is a contested term and this paper explores the many and sometimes contradictory ways in which the activity is construed and represented, but as a first approximation I suggest that we view it as an activity which encompasses computer programming, circumventing security systems designed to protect computer networks and digital data stores, designing and executing solutions to solve problems by combining software and hardware in unconventional ways, and modifying and re-purposing digital products of all kinds.

Alleyne, Brian. 2011. “We are all hackers now”: critical sociological reflections on the hacking phenomenon. _ Under Review, pp. 1-32. [Article]: Goldsmiths Research Online.

The paper connects earlier work to more recent developments. It calls for a re-imagination of hacking against the backdrop of late capitalist network society. Hacking is discussed in terms of open and clandestine practices, ‘hacktivism’, and hardware hacking. The paper concludes by sketching the outlines of an integrated sociological understanding of hacking, one which can account for the varied representations and practices that constitute hacking in the contemporary world.

Keywords: Hackers, computer hacking, sociology of information technology, computer programming, activism

Full paper available at: http://eprints.gold.ac.uk/6305/

CFP: Expanding the frontiers of hacking. Bio-punks, open hardware, and hackerspaces.

During the past two decades, hacking has chiefly been associated with software development. This is now changing as new walks of life are being explored with a hacker mindset, thus bringing back to memory the origin of hacking in hardware development. Now as then, the hacker is characterised by an active approach to technology, undaunted by hierarchies and established knowledge, and finally a commitment to sharing information freely. In this special issue of Critical Studies in Peer Production, we will investigate how these ideas and practices are spreading. Two cases which have caught much attention in recent years are open hardware development and garage biology. The creation of hacker/maker-spaces in many cities around the world has provided an infrastructure facilitating this development.

We are looking for both empirical and theoretical contributions which critically engage with this new phenomenon. Every kind of activity which relates to hacking is potentially of interest. Some theoretical questions which might be discussed in the light of this development include, but are not restricted to, the politics of hacking, the role of lay expertise, how the line between the community and markets is negotiated, how development projects are managed, and the legal implications of these practices. We welcome contributions from all the social sciences, including science & technology studies, design and art-practices, anthropology, legal studies, etc.

Edited by: Johan Söderberg and Alessandro Delfanti
Call: abstract 500 words

Both theoretical and empirical contributions accepted

Interested authors should submit an abstract of 500 words by July 10, 2011. Authors of accepted papers will be notified by July 31. All papers will be subject to peer review before being published. Abstracts should be sent to delfanti@sissa.it

Critical Studies in Peer Production (CSPP) is a new open access, online journal that focuses on the implications of peer production for social change. http://cspp.oekonux.org