Xabier Barandiaran @ polvo

Join the discussion!

INFRASTRUCTURE SERIES :
"Hackmeeting and Hacklabs: technopolitics and reality hacking in
south-european autonomous networks"

Presenter: Xabier Barandiaran - Series Talk #2
FREE ADMISSION
Monday June 12, 7-9pm

Polvo - 1458 W. 18th St. 1R | Chicago IL | www.polvo.org
Co-Sponsored by AREA Chicago Art/Education/Activism and CriticalArtWare
www.areachicago.com | www.criticalartware.net

Details Below:
Title and Abstract of the talk
Short Bio of Xabier Barandiaran
About the INFRASTRUCTURE SERIES
------------------------------
Title and Abstract of the talk:
"Hackmeeting and Hacklabs: technopolitics and reality hacking in
south-european autonomous networks"

For the last 6 years a number of autonomous collectives called HackLabs (hacker or hacktivist laboratories) have been created at different squat social centers and other self-managed spaces around europe. The network of hacklabs has now more than 40 nodes (most of them located in Spain and Italy) dedicated to build-up community based free-software and open access spaces for skill sharing and collective intelligence, technopolitic experimentation and direct action on several digital struggles (cybercontrol, digital rights, intelectual property, etc.). HackLabs were born as a result of Hackmeetings: underground self-organized hacktivist meetings where grassroot activist and geek culture meet to discuss, exchange and coordinate different knowledge, resources and initiatives around technologies and politics. The talk will focus on a set of trajectories within the hacklabs and hackmeeting networks: the experience of Metabolik (one of the first hacklabs in europe), the distributed and self-managed organization of spanish and european hackmeetings and the recent direct action campaing against intellectual property (CompartirEsBueno.Net). Emphasys will be made on philosophical background, discussion on technopolitical tactics and opportunities for coordination.

Some references:
http://hacklabs.org
http://metabolik.hacklabs.org
http://sindominio.net/hackmeeting

---------
Presenter Bio

Xabier Barandiaran is a PhD student and researcher on Cybernetics, Neurophilosophy and Artificial Life at the University of the Basque Country (Europe), member of the autonomous server SinDominio.Net, the hacktivist laboratory Metabolik BioHacklab (located at the social squat center Undondo Gaztetxea), the spanish and european HackLabs.Org network and the recent copyleft activist campaing "CompartirEsBueno.Net" (SharingIsGood: a spanish network of hacktivists and media-activists against intelectual property regimes and the media-culture industry). He has also been involved on other grassroots movement such as alternative education, social desobedience, anti-war movements and squatting. Xabier has also co- organized and activelly participated on a number of HackMeetings (self-managed technopolitical meetings that take place in squatted social centers in europe), Copyleft Conferences and other parallel events, workshops and seminars. His work has been devoted to
development and promotion of free-software tools for social movements, direct action and coordination of autonomous technopolitical networks as research on free technologies & culture, community based digital self-management and hacktivism.
---------
About the INFRASTRUCTURE SERIES:

AREA's ongoing and irregular "Infrastructure" series, which will continue with meetings, screenings, shows, dinners, writings, readings over the next few years. The framework of the series will focus on the questions of longevity, sustainability, institution building, and mutual aid relationships involved in the process of creating self-organized infrastructure. To imagine an existence beyond the rent gap speculation, beyond the non-profit (NGO) industrial-complex and beyond the academy - we must imagine another Infrastructure!

AREA Chicago is a biannual publication focusing on the intersections of Art/Education/Activism in the city of Chicago. The website is currently having technical difficulties but is generally available at www.areachicago.com

---------
ABOUT criticalartware:

criticalartware is an [application/platform/concern] compiled at the turn of the twenty first century to address hyperthreaded hystories of new media, [software-as-art/art-as-software] and [connections/ ruptures/dislocations] between early moments of {conceptual|code}- based art forms such as artware and Video Art. By drawing [parallels/ paths] between the [concepts/discourses] of these early moments, criticalartware hopes to critically question and [re]connect the current context to its rightful unruley past: a multitude of [personal/subjective] hyperthreaded [her/hi/hy]stories.

http://criticalartware.net