Info about London Hacklabs

Freedom bookshop, Whitechapel High St, London E1

“Hacking - subversive use of technology. To cross boundaries and borders by means of open communication networks, to freely share and exchange information and ideas.”

See http://www.hacklab.org.uk/ for details of times and locations of meetings.

Media HackLabs - autonomous technology zones, spaces for learning, for making your own media, for the sharing and developing of free and not-for-commercial-use technologies and software, for battling surveillance and alienation, for ongoing projects and for using new forms of communication in direct action.

Hacking as an attitude: this is our vision, not just computer knowledge.

We regard hacking to be an attitude that isn't confined to information technology. Our way of being hackers is apparent in day-to-day life, even when we're not using computers. It reveals itself when we fight to change the things we don't like, such as force-fed misinformation, the use of expensive technologies that are not available to everyone, and having to accept information dispensed without any interactivity.

A project of communications

In an atomised society where ideas have become “intellectual property”, most people know enough about computers to consume but not to create, all communication is mediated through a prism of control. We can use technology to break alienation, communicate with each other directly and challenge the notion of ideas as private property.

History

Geeks challenged the notion that creation, advance and development could only happen within the capitalist paradigm of need for profit. These kids did it cos they could, did it cos they loved it, were driven by the love of the new, inspired by sharing new ideas, new information, the challenge of creating. And sure, some of them sold out to microsoft, got rich, but a hell of a lot didn’t.

And the reaction to the slow strangulation of free information by the huge dinosaurs of greed, Microsoft and IBM was : Fuck you, we can do it faster, funnier and freer. You’ve got Windows - a system that offers no capacity for learning with a prohibitive price tag and viruses galore, we’ve got GNU/Linux - freeware DIY, more stable, virus-free & cost-free. You’ve got Sony, we’ve got Napster, Gnutella & peer-to-peer. Surfing rapidly replaced sailing the high seas as the pirates leisure choice of the future.

As the corporations moved in like vultures, open-source became a movement, kids who’d just been doing it for fun got angry, got organised. Hack-meetings mushroomed across Europe - meetings of digital communities and countercultures where codes were created and cracked, defiance against surveillance was discussed, skills were shared, information exchanged, net strikes plotted. People talked about technology but also about politics, about free software and related ways of thinking.

The logical next step on from these temporary zones of autonomous technology were Media HackLabs - permanent spaces, places for learning, for making your own media, for the sharing and developing of free technologies and software, for battling surveillance and alienation, for ongoing projects and for using new forms of communication in direct action.

Some examples

Our Media HackLab is inspired by communications actions from around the world. Here’s a few examples:

- Project at MIT which created a computer programme that could map out a safe passage through the CCTV cameras in a given area of a city. The same project created robots that could go out leafletting and make political speeches as a way of breaking down alienation!

- Projection of anti-war messages onto the Houses of Parliament.

- Daily pirate radio broadcasts to prisoners in Thessaloniki. An action which later escalated to the occupation of national commercial radio stations in Greece to broadcast solidarity messages to the prisoners.

- Woomera 2002 ‘No Borders’ camp - border hack technology which explored ways of breaking down the borders and exploding the silence between protesters inside and outside Woomera detention centre, by use of methods that ranged from noise actions to Indymedia Phone Indymedia Patch technology (PIMP) where detainees could make a phone call that was automatically transferred into an mp3 file for upload onto the Desert Indymedia website.

- Indymedia - network of collectively run media outlets "for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate tellings of the truth. Working out of a love and inspiration for people who continue to work for a better world, despite corporate media's distortions and unwillingness to cover the efforts to free humanity." Accessible, democratic and decentralised - anyone can log on with their own news-story.

- East London Wireless Project, one of many wireless projects capable of providing free internet usage to all buildings in a given area. Faster than broadband & cost-free.

- Pirate TV - one Rome social centre set up their own TV station, then went round their neighbourhood knocking on doors, and tuning people’s TV’s into the station.

So what are we actually gonna do?

Free internet/computer access
Video/audio editing suite
internet radio/internet TV
Making films
Hosting hacklab conferences
Using/making radio transmitters
Free software freeshop
Participation in wireless internet projects

Workshops in:

Internet/email/basic computer use
GNU/Linux freeware
Graphic design/web design
Filming
Video + sound editing
Computer assembling/recycling
Setting up internet radio
In addition to using and learning existing technology we also wish to participate in creating ecologically sound alternatives

Get involved

The Media HackLab is in the process of being set up. Everyone is welcome to get involved whether or not you have computer experience. We are still looking for donations of computers. See http://www.hacklab.org.uk/ for details.

A new wiki web site for the Media HackLab has been set up at here. This is totally interactive and anyone can upload or download stuff to/from it.

There is also a new Media HackLab discussion list. To subscribe, fill in the subscription form here >>>