Page last modified on 12/07/2004 12:00:56

(reproduced here for research purposes)
The idea of a “hacker ethic” is perhaps best formulated in Steven Levy’s 1984 book, Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution. Levy came up with six tenets:

• Access to computers – and anything which might teach you omething about the way the world works – should be unlimited and total. Always yield to the Hands-On imperative!
• All information should be free
• Mistrust authority – promote decentralization
• Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria such as degress, age, race, or position.
• You can create art and beauty on a computer.
• Computers can change your life for the better.

PHRACK, recognized as the “official” p/hacker newsletter, expanded on this creed with a rationale that can be summarized in three principles (“Doctor Crash,” 1986). [1] First, hackers reject the notion that “businesses” are the only groups entitled to access and use of modern technology. [2] Second, hacking is a major weapon in the fight against encroaching computer technology. [3] Finally, the high cost of equipment is beyond the means of most hackers, which results in the perception that hacking and phreaking are the only recourse to spreading computer literacy to the masses:

“Hacking. It is a full time hobby, taking countless hours per week to learn, experiment, and execute the art of penetrating multi-user computers: Why do hackers spend a good portion of their time hacking? Some might say it is scientific curiosity, others that it is for mental stimulation. But the true roots of hacker motives run much deeper than that. In this file I will describe the underlying motives of the aware hackers, make known the connections between Hacking, Phreaking, Carding, and Anarchy, and make known the “techno-revolution” which is laying seeds in the mind of every hacker. . . .If you need a tutorial on how to perform any of the above stated methods {of hacking}, please read a {PHRACK} file on it. And whatever you do, continue the fight. Whether you know it or not, if you are a hacker, you are a revolutionary. Don’t worry, you’re on the right side”. (“Doctor Crash,” 1986)
Although hackers freely acknowledge that their activities may be occasionally illegal, considerable emphasis is placed on limiting violations only to those required to obtain access and learn a system, and they display hostility toward those who transgress beyond beyond these limits. Most experienced CU members are suspicious of young novices who are often entranced with what they perceive to be the “romance” of hacking. Elite hackers complain continuously that novices are at an increased risk of apprehension and also can “trash” accounts on which experienced hackers have gained and hidden their access.
In sum, the hacker style reflects well-defined goals, communication networks, values, and an ethos of resistance to authority. Because hacking requires a broader range of knowledge than does phreaking, and because such knowledge can be acquired only through experience, hackers tend to be both older and more knowledgeable than phreaks. In addition, despite some overlap, the goals of the two are somewhat dissimilar. As a consequence, each group constitutes a separate analytic category.

This is from Richard Stallman, who found his way to the M.I.T. AI Lab in 1971, toward the tail end of the big sixties hacking burst there. He is perhaps best known for having written the mother of all freeware programs, a text-editor known as EMACS.

“I don’t know if there actually is a hacker’s ethic as such, but there sure was an M.I.T. Artificial Intelligence Lab ethic. This was that bureaucracy should not be allowed to get in the way of doing anything useful. Rules did not matter – results mattered. Rules, in the form of computer security or locks on doors, were held in total, absolute disrespect. We would be proud of how quickly we would sweep away whatever little piece of bureaucracy was getting in the way, how little time it forced you to waste. Anyone who dared to lock a terminal in his office, say because he was a professor and thought he was more important than other people, would likely find his door left open the next morning. I would just climb over the ceiling or under the floor, move the terminal out, or leave the door open with a note saying what a big inconvenience it is to have to go under the floor, “so please do not inconvenience people by locking the door any longer.” Even now, there is a big wrench at the AI Lab entitled “the seventh-floor master key”, to be used in case anyone dares to lock up one of the more fancy terminals.”

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The Cyberpunk Project (Page last modified on 11/10/2003 15:20:25)

Reproduced here for research purposes.

1. Art that is displayed and exists only in virtual or Cyberspace; the original art from which imagery is printed out (copied) or derived (downloaded).
2. Currently, the virtual space of the World Wide Web on the Internet is Cyberart’s domain.
3. Through the breakthrough of technology and specifically telecommunications, art that can be experienced globally and from different locations at the same moment in time; real time, online art experience from a global audience.
4. In current artists’ application, “art” of the visual type, such as digital imagery, although the definition is broad enough to include the conceptual, which may be totally nonvisual in its aesthetic content.
5. Art that emerges naturally from within the new global online society as it matures; evolving and cumulative online cultural artifacts.
6. Art that intentionally creates cultural statements through study of the social sciences describing the nature of the virtual community.
7. Creations of a specific group(s) emerging from cyberspace that work within the narrow definition of “art” as defined here and call themselves the “Cyberists”, developing the works and concepts of “Webism”.
8. For the Cyberist Pygoya, his visual cyberart is either “cyberpaintings”, online digital rendition of actual computer art paintings (oil on canvases) in the physical world, or “cyberdigital” works that have no cyberpainting counterparts but are original digital or electronic imagery.
9. Online art that conjures up the experience of “art appreciation” from its novel Internet content as the subject matter or concept for the work.
10. Experiment with new visual effects invented through computer graphics, incorporate these elements into historically new visual art and historically introduce the works first to the Internet audience. (ex. “Bandwidth”, 1997)
11. Inclusion of multimedia approaches for creating online aesthetic experience.
12. Direction towards interactivity of art with the viewer’s broad perceptual powers and cognitive abilities. (ex. Stereogram Gallery and Puzzle Cyberart)
13. Art that assists in the development of a sense of online community through shared cultural and visual experiences and values.
14. Art that expands online interpersonal communication beyond the limitations of text-only communication, increasing the capability for qualitative and subjective mutual responses rather than the quantitative and descriptive character of online commerical art.
15. Still graphic imagery, such as JPEGs and GIFs, that fullfill aesthetic needs of the Internet before multimedia art forms are fully developed , affordable and commonplace on even small personal homepages.
16. PreModern, Modern, and PostModern imagery recruited from the real world of this and past centuries that 1) foster visualization of the present day Internet , 2) relate it to the physical world cultures as virtual surrogate communities and 3) serve as predecessors of visualizations yet unborn by yet uninvented or developed technologies.
17. “Output”, including computer printers, lie outside the cyberart realm of virtual presentation.
18. Cyberart exists outside our notion of three dimensionality such as the location of a specific object in time and space. Upon mutliple browsers’ requests the original cyberart can replicate itself to reside simultaneously on monitors screens scattered around the globe.
19. After removal offline or virtual extinction great cyberart continues to live within the minds /memory of those fortunate to have witnessed it online.
20. Like HTML, hidden behind its visual translation interface is the “genetic blueprint” of the art in binary code /program languages. This is the form the art takes during transmission throughout the Information Highway. Conceptually in such an elementary and pure form it is in itself a thing of beauty (from such “compositions” pixel “rendition” vary according to the variability of monitor viewing characteristics).
21. Going virtual or cyber as a computer artist involves moving mentally to new ground to gain a fresh perspective for making.
22. Exposure to online cyberart has the potential to generalize viewer affinity into an appreciation of all art forms offline.
23. Cyberart is yet another vehicle by which the mature artist can teach and share what he has learned about the nature of art.
24. Leon James, Ph.D., writes that “spiritual psychology studies mind through self-witnessing of one’s thoughts and feelings on the daily round of activities.” An artist’s work by such definition is spiritual to the artist since one’s self-witnessing of thoughts, feelings and values are projected into the work. By selective clicking to access favorite online cyberart the browser is self-witnessing one’s interest, judgment and reflection on his or her reaction to the art, thereby “creating the opportunity for moral self-assessment”. Therefore, at a certain level, engaging virtual art has the potential to become a spiritual act. “A popular Web site is a spiritual beacon for netizens.” (James, 1996)
25. New integrations between fine arts traditional motionless paintings and movement, such as animation (ex. “Mona”, 1997)
26. Incorporation of Internet theme, content or subject matter into traditional art media even without any digital art element.
27. Exploring the virtual display space of Web browsers (ex. “Dipstick”, 1997); using automatic scrolling of the html page
28. Mirroring virtual communities life events or problems (ex. “Invasion of Geocities.com”, 1997)
29. Join/particpate in a virtual community to get a first hand experience and interact, develop friendships with virtual neighbors (ex.Geocities.com/SoHo/9650)
30. Reach out to other artists populating the Web to share opportunity to promote and create cyberart expriences for all (ex. Webmuseum Cybercolony Awards)
31. Experiment with interactivity with the browser even if he or she is not an artist
32. Experiment with using the full screen HTML page as a cell of online animation (ex. Page=Cells, 1997)
33. Create linked art exhibitions that span the global network; the viewer must travel the entire virtual planet to take in all the shows (ex. GREAT!)
34. Gradual transformation from real world computer or digital artist to cyberartist comfortable and productive in an online virtual environment, keeping “one foot” in each of the realities.
35. Virtual exhibition space dedicated to preserving the creative work and spirit of all deceased artists; irregardless of “success” as an artist in his or her lifetime; as in the Mausoleum Art Museum
36. Virtual access of all art that assists in global cultural acculturation and homogenization.
37. All art from the physical world that is adapted to exist in online virtual space.
38. Making cyberart is a love affair with the every growing power of creative applications of evolving Internet technology, thereby prioritizing multimedia interactivity over static imagery
39.The Web opens up unlimited fields of knowledge to the artist searching for inspiration through exposure to new subject matter-without leaving his or her art studio-desktop (ex. Webmuseum Cyberculture Research Library)
40. Symbolic of the magic of cerebrally escaping from one’s daily desk and routines of drudgery; making, in the long run, the worker more productive by contributing a source of enjoyment and sense of nonconfinement on the job.
41. Utilizing inevitable downloading time as the moment of aesthetic expression, thought and transmittance (even at the expense of negation of the “document done’ objective)
42. Mirroring back a Website’s banner links, its satellite outposts on spidering across Cyberspace, in some type interactivity with their Web site mothership
43. Telecommunciation connectivity between the Internet’s Cyberspace and Outer Space
44. A personal computer opening screen meshed with the Internet as a mutant graphic interface concoction- the Web Site Desktop bookmarker, invented November 25, 1997 (Pygoya)
45. Establishing a menu of “tours” of a large Web site (such as our Webmuseum) based on estimated browsing time, thereby providing convenient and varied previewing “chunks” of information. In a sense each tour is in itself a “Web site” experience should the browser never return back to the larger “mother Web site”
46. Creating global based real time online REAL “meet the artist” receptions for online art exhibit openings; such as Debbi Germann’s historic VIP Suite Gallery (Pygoya Webmuseum of Cyberart) and chat room reception at Webmuseum Reception Hall on January 1, 1998
47. .Establishing a “web ring” of artists with similiar interests in building a new art movement for the Internet founded on creating art born on the Internet, such as Cyberartist Ring
48. Creative thinking that derives new ways to foster site visitors to travel between one or more Cyberart Web sites, besides the use of Web rings.
49. Novel ways to use coveted “awards” and logo graphic icons to increase art Web site interests and promote interactivity among Cyberart Web sites
50. Serious effort to mirror actual museum functions online to manifest actualized museum experience, credibility and service in world accessible Cyberspace
51. “Mirror pages” are identical html pages of primarily text information common to two or more Websites; concept of “mirror images” plays upon “mirror pages” idea with identical but reversed (horizontally) cyberart images at two different Web sites.
52. “Puzzle Ring” binds a group of Web sites by offering just a fragment of a image; collecting all the pieces completes the puzzle image for whatever purpose intended by the sites.
53.Electrons. The new art medium.
Computer chip designers, manufacturers, programmers, and ISPs conspire to create the world’s largest canvas. It is called cyberart. The canvas is the net, and we paint it with electrons.
—earl hinrichs
54.The Web Museum will live forever…
CyberArt has not yet been defined, lets see what it is…
Lets help others to see what it is, who’ll decide, artist or
viewer?… Yet to be determined…
—Dennis O’Carney
55. Web sites in itself as “works of art’
56. Web sites of deceased artists that remain online in perpetuity as memorial and perpetual contribution to Cyberculture by the universal human spirit
57. Fusion of physical exhibit space and virtual Web display space through art event, interactivity and/or collaboration between the two exhibit realities
57. Artist-In-CyberResidence concept and experimental online activity in that role
58. Specific interaction between physical museum and online virtual museum resulting in new experience of the audiences
59. Providing student artists the opportunity to exhibit in professional vrml gallery space online, thereby providing early learning to assist their development into mature Cyberartists
60. Using the monitor screen for making art instead of paper or canvas
61. Java applet imagery intergrated visually with html page background graphic file; thereby creating the illusion of full screen image and animation
62. Accumulating sites’ awards as a Web derived graphics collection which historically documents graphic design, fads and power and site authoring presence
63. Concept of Internet art as imagery “matted” by peripheral background screen space and framed by the plastic border of the monitor; also “art” as aesthetic experience through interaction among computer hardware, software and the online network with the solitary user/viewer.
64. Full screen animated through narrow horizontal animation GIF file repeated vertically to fill screen size.
65. “Reproduction” – full screen digital image printed on transparency; everything taken out of monitor box and replaced with internal incandescent light source to back light transparency positioned as apparent screen image. At first glance it appears monitor is working, i.e., there’s a produced electronic image on screen. Yet it is only a hardcopy ink print mimicking an electronic image, thus a simulation or conceptual “reproduction” of the real thing.
Artist is planning brick & mortor works using such a reversal, exterior surfaces of monitor and cpu below it may be painted to extend lit transparency design.
65. Creating a Web site of one’s work to develop a presence of art from one’s country, thereby adding a location to the expanding network of art of the world. In toto it is like an online catalog of Earth Art.
66. Defining a network within the larger “catalog of Earth Art” as stated in no. 65. For example the creation of an art ring such as R2001.com that creates “members” and a group identity with a specific agreed upon mission.
67. Creating a new art collectible made possible through the global reach and exposrue of the Internet, such as Snailmail Cards.
68. Some “infrasturture” foundations for a “cyberart” may be found in the meaning of “art”?
69. A possible underlying explanation of “art”, hence also “cyberart”, through the approach of an art psychology.
70. Using the accessibility of reviewing artwork on the Internet as “online virtual brochures” to promote cyberart in real world physical exhibitions around the planet.

Cyberpunk is a literary movement, born in the 1980′s, that seeks to completely integrate the realms of high tech and of pop culture, both mainstream and underground, and break down the separation between the organic and the artificial.

Cyberpunk is a member of the genre of fiction known as Hard (or Hard Core) Science Fiction. It is called Hard Science Fiction because of its heavy reliance on technology or biology to tell a story. The works of cyberpunk science fiction writers are the birthplace of the concept of “cyberspace”. This concept was first introduced to the world by writer William Gibson in his novel “Neuromancer”, probably the most famous cyberpunk book ever.

“Cyberpunk literature, in general, deals with marginalized people in technologically-enhanced cultural ‘systems’. In cyberpunk stories’ settings, there is usually a ‘system’ which dominates the lives of most ‘ordinary’ people, be it an oppressive government, a group of large, paternalistic corporations, or a fundamentalist religion. These systems are enhanced by certain technologies (today advancing at a rate that is bewildering to most people), particularly ‘information technology’ (computers, the mass media), making the system better at keeping those within it inside it. Often this technological system extends into its human ‘components’ as well, via brain implants, prosthetic limbs, cloned or genetically engineered organs, etc. Humans themselves become part of ‘the Machine’. This is the ‘cyber’ aspect of cyberpunk. However, in any cultural system, there are always those who live on its margins, on ‘the Edge’: criminals, outcasts, visionaries, or those who simply want freedom for its own sake. Cyberpunk literature focuses on these people, and often on how they turn the system’s technological tools to their own ends. This is the ‘punk’ aspect of cyberpunk.”

- Erich Schneider

I told her how much I would love to see some art in Istanbul and she offered for me to go with her. It was satisfying to meet someone with the same passion and I felt a necessity to cherish the experience.

I walked down to the Istanbul modern art gallery in Besiktas, a warehouse in the docklands. Experimentation and imagination left to run wild in a public space. I allowed my thoughts to wander as I walked between the installations.

The layout tended to have this effect because the installations were without partitioning walls. Kara was critical about this. She said she would have preferred them to be separated as it was difficult to concentrate on one thing at a time.

This is an interesting analogy of life. It is difficult to focus on one thing if there are many things vying for your attention. It was interesting to see how my brain distributed attention. On occasion there were, some pleasing interactions of the different elements.

There was a folding bike using a taught wire instead of the bike’s downtube. There was a brilliant room with a light show projecting changing colours into the dark room. Silhouettes of street lamps and electricity pylons into a pitch back room in slowly changing rich colours, dark velvety blue and organic green.

A picture of the evolution of man from chimp to upright walking homosapien and then to a soldier holding a gun and lastly a soldier turned round pointing a gun back onto the other human solder.

There was a small red barrel covered in brown masking tape. Attached to it was a faux electronic device and some wires. On first impression it looked like a home made bomb. My reaction was to consider whether I should leave. Then I saw the artist info-board on the wall.

I was reminded of how powerful and easy it is to manipulate the survival instinct. The power of art is to challenge our perceptions and pre-conceptions.  and this static object via my visual cognition and mental recognition became something of potential danger. Whereas historical humans have had to be scared of dangerous predators, more obviously dangerous, now we (are brainwashed- deliberately or not) to be scared of things like this.

The project called ‘This is not a bomb’ by David Ter-Oganyan, aimed to be on the margin between horror and comedy. A critical conceptualisation of the problem of the ‘terrorist threat as a nonexistent entity’.

I walked around slowly, soaking up everything. A girl wearing black knee length socks, black shoes and a short orange dress,  a pitch black hair bob, mysterious, somehow always in the corner of my eye and it was almost like she was following me or me her, because we would lose each other and then find each other again.

However, we never made eye contact, and she looked like a ghost. She would stop, feet and legs tightly together standing up right, and on observing her she was an oasis of calm around other people bustling around the gallery.

Kara and I walked down the packed Istiklal street. She was attending a private art installation for the  opening of a bank. Her friend was premièring a video. There was free food and wine and well-dressed important-looking people.

A group of professional women met at a secret flat location to wear slutty leopard print dresses, drink wine, smoke, chat, pose, and take photos of each other, before emerging in their smart black office suits. It was playful and slightly erotic. It displayed the power of the women and their feminism but also the oppression of their feminist qualities and a sense of needing to imitate men in order to appear powerful.

It is focused on handmade, craft, unusual and innovative making processes.

The exhibition left me with the impression that the world of making is being thrown out wide by open source technologies, biotech and strange combinations of processes.

There is also a strong global theme to the event with a number of videos of travel focussing on and studying craft processes such as furniture makers in Thailand or Ghanian maker who specialises in novelty wooden coffins.

I highly recommend visiting the exhibition if you are interested in travel, craft and technology.

Mahogany racing bike

Hand made bike

Open source surfboard

]]> http://welchcreative.co.uk/2011/12/02/power-of-making-exhibition-at-the-v-a/feed/ 0 http://welchcreative.co.uk/2011/10/05/ten-years-of-nogging-twisting-musical-creations/ http://welchcreative.co.uk/2011/10/05/ten-years-of-nogging-twisting-musical-creations/#comments Wed, 05 Oct 2011 17:25:25 +0000 admin http://www.slowquest.co.uk/?p=2097 A little known fact about me is my obsession with music. Whilst studying my undergrad I spent too long making music compositions rather than doing the work I should have been! I have compiled a page with my best pieces from the last 10 years. Visit my music page at my portfolio website:

http://bit.ly/tW4WBq

Featuring innovative work from over fifty designers to present a show filled with radical, bold, breakthrough prototypes and ideas that push the boundaries of many areas of the design discipline.

Work at the show will explore the fields of digital media, interactive design, interiors, products and fashion, travel, education, food, medicine and sport. We hope to challenge the way we interact, consume and produce, whilst addressing topics including social networks, open products, sustainability and making.

Designers from a variety of postgraduate Design programmes at Goldsmiths will be featuring their work, including:

• MRes in Design
• MA Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship
• MA Design – Critical Practice
• MA Design and Environment
• MA in Design Education
• MA Design Futures

*For more information Please see the website www.makingbelieve.co.uk*

Check out the amazing page on Bike Technology

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metadesign

We researched the ideal items of equipment we would need for a life on the road. When we left we realised soon we still had way more than we needed. Since then we’ve been gradually getting rid of things that are not essential. The result is that by now we are getting near to carrying an optimal selection of equipment.

I watched a National Geographic documentary called ’6 Degrees Could Change the World’. The documentary looked at the possible effects of climate change with 2, 4, and 6 degrees of warming.

It postulates that after 6 degrees of warming, which is the high end of the warming scale (and the disaster scenario), there will be general social breakdown as people are displaced and fight for the remaining resources.

There is ‘survival’ expert who explains how people should deal with this potential situation.

He has a bag with all the items he needs in it to survive. He puts it on his back climbs onto a bike and cycles off. He says the most important thing is to stay mobile. Personally I would have recommended an Extrawheel.

I couldn’t help but smile when I saw this though. This guy’s suggestion for surviving the worst possible scenario for climate change, was basically to go cycle touring.