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Hacker Cultures: The Conference Podcast
As Covid-19 turned most conferences virtual, so to combat Zoom-fatigue, at 4S/EASST 2020 we decided to try another format and turn a conference session into a podcast. Among hundreds of panels, papers and sessions, our panels rounded up all sorts of researchers who study what it is to be a hacker, and what hacking, programming, tinkering and working with computers is all about. We have continued biennally for full three seasons.
The newest season comes to you from the 2024 join Society for Social Studies of Science/European Association for the Study of Science and Technology conference (4S/EASST) in Amsterdam, titled "Making and Doing Transformations".
The second series was from EASST 2022 titled "The Politics of Technoscientific Futures" held in Madrid in July 2022. Our panel was titled "Hacking Everything. The cultures and politics of hackers and software workers". The first series was from 4S/EASST in "virtual Prague" in August 2020, titled "Locating and Timing Matters: Significance and agency of STS in emerging worlds".
We the hosts are Paula Bialski, who is an Associate Professor at the University of St. Gallen, Andreas Bischof who is a Research Group Leader at Chemnitz University of Technology, and Mace Ojala, a PhD scholar at Ruhr-University Bochum. Audio production by Heights Beats at Hotmilk Records. The theme track of first series is "Rocky" by Paula & Karol. Heights Beats produced the theme track of the second series. Funding for the editing of this first series comes from University of St. Gallen, the second from Chemnitz University of Technology.
Hacker Cultures: The Conference Podcast
Episode 2 (2024) Janis Lena Meißner: From “makers-in-the-making” to “empowering hacks”
Janis Lena Meißner from The Vienna University of Technology shares stories and insights from practical work with people who are usually not included in the Maker movement.
Despite its promises of technology democratization, the Maker Movement still lacks diversity. To address this disparity, we might deliberately turn to „unexpected users“ of maker tools and reimagine core hacker values for subversive practices together with them.
This episode is about hacking the ways in which Making is usually imagined to be performed. It offers reflections on the “Empowering Hacks” project, my long-term collaboration with two men with disabilities on fabricating their own ideas. Our project began with the mission “to produce disabled tools at a cheaper rate but with a more customisable outcome” and so we collaborated on designing, modelling and 3D-printing “wheelchair golfballs” and other assistive gadgets. Externally, “Empowering Hacks” was motivated by creating positive change for others. Internally, our processes of mentoring and production were configured around the interests and social roles of my collaborators. Disability was not perceived as an impediment but as an opportunity to reimagining Making practices.
My reflections are rooted in a key distinction between “Hacking” and “Making”. While Making encompasses a wide range of practices using digital fabrication tools, Hacking denotes self-directed technological action for chosen purposes. In “Empowering Hacks”, my collaborators did not identify as makers, however as makers-in-the-making they had freedom to figure out their own ways to make. Their hacking became a performative and material challenge to ableist assumptions about disabled people not being able to be designers or creators. The dialectic podcast is an opportunity to further unpack the subversive capacities of reimagining making through hacking.
This episode is a live recording from Hacker Cultures! The Podcast Panel Season 3 panel organized at the European Association for the study of Science and Technology and Society for Social Studies of Science EASST/4S 2024 conference in Amsterdam on 2024-07-16. The hosts are Paula Bialski, Andreas Bischof and Mace Ojala. Audio production by Heights Beats at Hotmilk Records, who also produced the theme track. We are grateful for Chemnitz University of Technology for funding.