More on 'hacking' and 'social hacking'

The practice of 'hacking' is a particularly overused and misunderstood term in popular culture and contemporary arts. Hacking usually carries negative connotations and is used to refer to the activity of breaking into computer systems. However, among the computer programming community, the term 'hack' refers to a clever solution to a problem, therefore a creative and transformative act. Indeed, there is an art historical link to practices that involve appropriation and (post-Duchampian) practices of hacking new material out of found objects. One can think about hacking all sorts of everyday objects and everyday life situations - hacking buildings, bodies, sexuality, machines, code, texts, ideologies... Hacking in the realm of human communication and social interaction is often referred to as 'social hacking'.

References
Hakim Bey (1985) _T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism_, New York: Autonomedia.
Geoff Cox & Joasia Krysa, eds. (2005) _Engineering Culture_, New York: Autonomedia.
Geoff Cox, Joasia Krysa & Anya Lewin, eds. (2004) _Economising Culture_, New York: Autonomedia.
Florian Cramer (2003) 'Social Hacking, Revisited', http://cramer.plaintext.cc/all/social_hacking_revisited_sollfrank/social_hacking_revisited_sollfrank.html
Jürgen Habermas (1989) _The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society_, trans. Thomas Burger, Cambridge: Polity.
Steven Levy (1994) _Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution_, New York: Penguin.
Armin Medosch (2003) 'Piratology: the deep seas of open code and free culture', in Medosch, ed. (2003) _dive: an introduction to the world of free software and copyleft culture_, Liverpool: FACT, pp. 8-19.
Paulo Virno (2004) _A Grammar of the Multitude: For an Analysis of Contemporary Forms of Life_, trans. Isabella Bertoletti, James Cascaito, Andrea Casson, New York: Semiotext(e).
McKenzie Wark (2004) _A Hacker Manifesto_, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Links
Wikipedia entry on Plymouth
Hakim Bey and Ontological Anarchy: The Writings of Hakim Bey, http://www.hermetic.com/bey/
Hewitt+Jordan's 'The neo-imperialist function of public art is to clear a path for aggressive economic expansion', http://www.hewittandjordan.com/work/neo-imperial.html
McKenzie Wark's 'A Hacker Manifesto' (version 4.0), http://subsol.c3.hu/subsol_2/contributors0/warktext.html

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