Hacking the Spaces

Hacking the Spaces is a 2009 critical pamphlet by Austrian artist and theorist Johannes Grenzfurthner and German writer Frank Apunkt Schneider about the history, politics, and institutionalization of hackerspaces and hacklabs. Published by the Austrian art and theory group monochrom, the text examined hackerspaces as social and technical infrastructures while criticizing what the authors saw as a shift away from countercultural, micropolitical, and oppositional traditions toward a more commodified and entrepreneurial maker culture.

The pamphlet has been cited in scholarship on hackerspaces, maker culture, fab labs, open-technology communities, and design justice, particularly in discussions of the depoliticization of hacker culture, the influence of neoliberal urban and creative-industries policy, and questions of gender, race, and exclusion within hacker and maker communities.

Background and publication

Hacking the Spaces was published online by monochrom in 2009 under the subtitle "A critical acclaim of what was, is and could be a hackerspace (or hacklab, for that matter)". The text appeared during a period of rapid growth and public visibility for hackerspaces, makerspaces, fab labs, and other community workshops devoted to computing, electronics, digital fabrication, and technical experimentation.

The pamphlet situated hackerspaces in a longer countercultural history of shared spaces, alternative infrastructures, and experiments in collective living and working. It connected the history of hackerspaces to earlier forms of social and technical experimentation, including hacklabs, squats, and politically oriented media and technology spaces.

Argument

Grenzfurthner and Schneider argued that hackerspaces could not be understood only as neutral workshops or technical clubs. They described them as social spaces shaped by class, gender, race, subcultural codes, and broader political-economic conditions.

The pamphlet criticized what the authors described as a drift from oppositional hacker traditions toward more domesticated forms of geek culture and technological hobbyism. It argued that hackerspaces risked becoming compatible with entrepreneurial self-optimization, the ideology of the "creative class", and urban innovation policy, rather than remaining connected to dissent, illegality, improvisation, and political critique.

The text also addressed exclusion within hacker and maker communities. Grenzfurthner and Schneider criticized what they called "white male nerd dominance" in hackerspaces and argued for a broader, non-repressive inclusion of groups marginalized by bourgeois society. This phrase was later cited in education and maker-culture scholarship as part of a critique of the demographics and cultural codes of hacker, tinkerer, and robotics communities.

Reception and influence

Sasha Costanza-Chock discussed Hacking the Spaces in Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need, placing it within a history of hacklabs, hackerspaces, fab labs, hackathons, and other "design sites". Costanza-Chock discusses the pamphlet as part of a broader account of the transformation of hacklabs and hackerspaces from politicized spaces linked to social movements into sites increasingly shaped by start-up culture, neoliberal ideas of individual technical mastery, and municipal innovation policy.

Christina Dunbar-Hester discussed the pamphlet in Hacking Diversity: The Politics of Inclusion in Open Technology Cultures. In her account of the 2012 Hackers on Planet Earth conference, The panel description characterized Hacking the Spaces as having provoked controversy in forums and mailing lists after its publication. Dunbar-Hester notes that the panel referenced the 2009 pamphlet and connected its arguments to debates about diversity, inclusion, counterculture, punk, squatting, do-it-yourself practices, and the political history of hackerspaces. A contemporary comment piece in The Guardian reported on the panel and situated it within a broader debate about gender and participation in hackspaces and computer science.

The pamphlet was also taken up in debates about the political direction of hacklabs and hackerspaces. Maxigas referred to Grenzfurthner and Schneider as part of a broader discussion about the political potential of these spaces.

Alex Megelas, writing on hackerspaces and social movements, cited Hacking the Spaces as an argument for linking hacker communities to broader social change. Megelas described the pamphlet as criticizing the complacency and largely homogeneous makeup of hacker culture while calling for a more politicized understanding of hackerspaces.

The pamphlet has also been cited in scholarship on education and making. Erica Rosenfeld Halverson and Kimberly M. Sheridan cited Grenzfurthner and Schneider's phrase "white male nerd dominance" in their discussion of critiques of the maker movement in education. The Studio XX text "Hacking with Care" quoted the same passage in a discussion of exclusion, care, politics, and well-being in hacktivist environments.

See also

• Hackerspace
• Hacklab
• Maker culture
• Fab lab
• Hacktivism
• Design justice
• Monochrom