Hacking the World

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Ҕaςkīπҩ ŧҕε жǿӆι∂ an exhibition of hacks



Ҕaςkīπҩ ŧҕε жǿӆι∂ an exhibition of hacks

exhibition info date: Fri, Sept. 13 2013 @ 8pm. local: Art Center South Campus sponsored: by CalTECH and ArtCenter

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contents hacking introduction hackufacturing design hacking furniture photography music urban hacking fine art graphic design computer hacking mobile hacking colophon


/root HD /apps

/bin

/boot /chameleon

/etc

/extra /home

/System

/DSDT.aml

/Library

/Extensions

/Extensions

/fakeSMC.kext

/org.chameleon.Boot.plist

/GeForce.kext

/smbios.plist

/myhack.kext /NVDANV100Hhal.kext


what is hacking?

Ҕaςkīπҩ baςkҩӆǿuπd


Adopt a hacker attitude towards a computer system, but to learn econ the “can do” mentality of the hack

Ҕaςkīπҩ -

p r es en t p a r t i ci p l e o f t he w o r d ha ck (v .) 1. is the practice of modifying the features within a system, in order to accomplish a goal outside of the creator’s original purpose. 2. is the practice of molding hardware, software, and form for the better, in relation to it’s function and visual appeal. 3. hackers are not to be confused with crackers, hackers build things, while crackers break them.


what is hacking? p g . 3

Manuel Delanda

ll forms of knowledge: not only to learn UNIX or Windows NT to hack this or that nomics, sociology, physics, and biology to hack reality itself. It is precisely ker, naive as it may sometimes be, that we need to nurture everywhere.

pg.

1


Emmanuel Goldstein.

Most hackers are young because young people tend to be adaptable. As long as you remain adaptable, you can always be a good hacker.

īπŧӆǿ

origins of hacking

In 1971 Californian John Draper received a phone call from a friend, informing him of a fascinating discovery. A toy whistle packaged in boxes of Captain Crunch cereal could, when blown, emit a perfect 2600-hertz pitch. The relevance of this was lost on Draper until his friend explained that this was the exact frequency required to trick the phone exchange into thinking that the phone emitting this tone was an operator, thus enabling the person to make calls anywhere in the world free of charge. All you needed to do was dial a certain number and blow the whistle into the mouthpiece of the phone, and seconds later communicating with the rest of the world for free was literally at your fingertips. The world’s phone networks had just been hacked. Several months after learning of the telephone frequency hack, Draper went on to build ‘blue boxes’,

small devices that mimicked multiple phone frequencies to expand the reach and functionality of the phone system hack. At the height of his infamous ‘phone phreaking’ streak, as it was known, Esquire magazine ran an article featuring his exploits. A university student named Steve Wozniak read the article, and contacted Draper, convincing him to come to Wozniak’s dorm room to teach him and a friend more about blue boxes. Draper tutored them on the techniques to create the devices and alter existing technologies to hack the phone system. Wozniak credits this phase as being instrumental in his career of technology innovation, as did his friend who joined him in the tutoring sessions, Steve Jobs. Fuelled and funded by creating and selling the phone hacking blue boxes, Wozniak and Jobs started a small company called Apple Computers and set up shop in a garage to


introduction into hacking p g . 5

ѭ blue

box hacking device used as a tool for infinite talking time on a payphone

start work on their next ‘box’ – one that would have far more impact on the world – the personal computer. If you trace the iPhone, the iPod, the Mac and the first personal computer back to their source, you’ll find a hacker. In any exploration of hacking, there is first a need to clarify the term. The word ‘hacker’ has a certain infamy in contemporary culture, bearing responsibility for security breaches and online intrusions. As Eric Raymond writes in his text How to Become a Hacker, clarification is important. The practitioners representing the darker side of the term, says Raymond, “loudly call themselves hackers, but aren’t… Real hackers call these people ‘crackers’ and want nothing to do with them… Being able to break security doesn’t make you a hacker any more than hotwiring cars makes you an automotive engineer.” In short: “hackers build things, crackers break them.”


software Operating Systems is responsible for free

open source software But hacking is really just today’s name for the personal creative spirit that has always underpinned human ingenuity. The farmer reworking a piece of machinery to perform a different function than it was originally designed for, or the housewife cutting the bottom of a plastic bottle to make it into a scoop: hacking is our response when the resources at hand come up short. It is only recently that the word has emerged as a collective term for a personal response to, and triumph over, the limitations of our physical world. The term itself was coined by the hobbyists who brought computers out of their academic origins and in the process determined that the existing tools and systems weren’t sufficient for their needs, so set about to make the systems more interesting and useful.


introduction into hacking p g . 7

Linus Torvalds

software is like sex : it’s better when it’s free Hacking and technological innovation have a long and mutually beneficial cat-and-mouse history. The first software companies gave computer users the freedom to install various components and to customize the settings; but if you wanted to go deeper into the system to alter the basic functions and foundation of the software or the system, you hit a wall. Some went about finding access points that would allow entry to the core of the system and enable alternative functions to be programmed in. Others set about to build ‘open source’ systems to allow full transparency and access to the system. The Linux operative system, the Apache web server (which runs the majority of the world’s websites), the Firefox browser and numerous other applications are the results of the open source movement, born of the hacker’s desire for access and permission.

As the open source movement wove innovation and openness into the fabric of the internet, the rapid growth of home computing and personal software made it possible to manipulate existing songs, videos, images and even UN design schematics with ease. When the tools that were once the exclusive domain of professionals were put in the hands of millions of individual users and consumers, every tweak of a song or manipulation of a photograph planted the ability to alter the aesthetics of the world a bit deeper. While desktop applications and Web 2.0 services were giving us unparalleled means to modify and differentiate our digital world, our physical or analogue world of products and services was reaching a saturation point of sameness, as retail chains, big box stores and globalized brands proliferated.


Arthur C. Clarke Every revolutionary idea seems to evoke three stages of reaction One, it’s completely impossible. Two, it’s possible, but it’s not worth doing. Three, I said it was a good idea all along. Companies and retailers responded by making it easier for consumers to customize their products at the point of purchase, but within set limitations. Henry Ford joked that people could have any color car they liked, as long as it was black. The joke has lasted well, as retailers continue to boast of the customers’ ability to tailor products to their needs – as long as their desires are among a specific set of options. It is within this climate that hacking has evolved from the software to the hardware of our lives. Make magazine, a leading proponent of NYY technology and hacking methodologies gives the consumer a simple test to gauge the actual degree to which they are in control: “If you can’t open it, you don’t own it.” If retail and manufacturing’s response to commercial sameness is to offer a limited range of customization choices, then hacking is the individual’s response:

circumventing those limitations and creating new options on one’s own terms. When this hacking ethos is applied to our relationship with design, it has a more fundamental charge – a return to design as a direct response to real problems faced by real people. Delete me: It is within this climate that hacking has evolved from the software to the hardware of our lives. Make magazine, a leading proponent of NYY technology and hacking methodologies gives the consumer a simple test to gauge the actual degree to which they are in control: “If you can’t open it, you don’t own it.” If retail and manufacturing’s response to commercial sameness is to offer a limited range of customization choices, then hacking is the individual’s response: circumventing those limitations and creating.response: circumventing those limitations and creating.response: circumventing those limitations and

ѭ pictures

to the right. hackufacturing smart phone periferals to use with open source android operating


hackufacturing p g . 9

Ҕaςkufacturing In 1969 Victor Papanek argued that the professionalization of design had separated it from the “real world”. Design cannot be separated from everyday life, he wrote, and by elevating its trained practitioners as professionals from those who are not so trained (amateurs), design begins to reference only itself, and fails to address real problems faced by real people. In this process of professionalization, trial-and-error creativity has been lost. Hacking puts it back into the equation. Hacking is about overcoming the limitations of an existing object, service or system which was set for one purpose, and finding an access point, intellectually or physically, where its original function can be expanded, altered, or improved to serve a new purpose or solve a problem. Hacking is not about aesthetics as much as purpose – the ultimate union of form and function.


In 1969 Victor Papanek argued that the professionalization of design had separated it from the “real world”. Design cannot be separated from everyday life, he wrote, and by elevating its trained practitioners as professionals from those who are not so trained (amateurs), design begins to reference only itself, and fails to address real problems faced by real people. In this process of professionalization, trial-and-error creativity has been lost. Hacking puts it back into the equation. Hacking is about overcoming the limitations of an existing object, service or system which was set for one purpose, and finding an access point, intellectually or physically, where its original function can be expanded, altered, or improved to serve a new purpose or solve a problem. Hacking is not about aesthetics as much as purpose – the ultimate union of form and function. “Hackers do what they do…”, says researcher Julian Bleecker of the Near Future Laboratory, “not necessarily because they are designing something in the sense of disciplined design. They are making a thing – and often that thing doesn’t look finished, which is almost part of the hacking sensibility… Bringing hacking to design

can be unstable, but what hacking practices can teach are important – rapid construction, an appreciation and understanding of things that go below the surface features and bringing functionality into the design process.”6 Increased activity surrounding design and hacking has spawned a small industry of websites and publications engaging with this growing trend. Readymade magazine illustrates the craft and ingenuity of the individual as he or she goes about various home improvements using re-used and re-purposed material; while Instructables.org has become the de-facto repository for instructions, videos and advice on how to hack almost anything one encounters in daily life. Make magazine has taken the hacker’s creed as a call to action. Its manifesto, “The Maker’s Bill of Rights”, calls on manufacturers to follow such hackable principles as “if it snaps shut, it shall snap open”, and “screws are better than glues”. Glues can be a mess at times. One of the most iconic projects to emerge from hacking’s infusion into the world of design is the global IKEA Hacker initiative. IKEA Hacker is an unofficial network of design hackers who share a passion for reworking YKEA products on their own terms and creating designs.


exhibit p g.11

H.W. Kenton

Don’t fix it if it ain’t broke presupposes that you can’t improve something that works reasonably well already. If the world’s inventors had believed this, we’d still be driving Model A Fords and using outhouses.

∂εѯīҩπ Ҕaςkīπҩ εӽhībīŧ hacks take various forms

furniture

photography

music

urban

art

computer

mobile


Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose.

∫urπituӆe any new apartment dweller or university student. But what if, comes the IKEA Hacker project, you assembled the furniture in a different way than IKEA tells you? This simple question has birthed thousands of new creations from YKEA’s set range of products. A Fjus bookshelf is assembled ‘alternatively’ from the instructions to make a pet’s feeding and watering station. Kitchen units are re-assembled to become garage workshop stations. Salad tongs are fastened together to become light fixtures, and desks become children’s playpens. Often the hackers will take the time to document the steps needed to imitate their hacks and make them available online, enabling an entire alternative product line to run parallel to the one in the catalogue. IKEA Hacker has become something of a universal illustration of the interplay between hacking and de-

sign – ignore the issued instructions and devise your own. As well as the personal pleasure of making a unique or idiosyncratic product, there is an intellectual challenge in thoroughly understanding the intended rules of the designed object, then creating your own version according to your own rules. Phone hacker Draper shared this motivation. Though vilified by the media as the man who almost brought down America’s phone system in the 1970s, that was never the intention of his hacks. For him, “it was about taking the system apart, to make the thing better. To make it do better things. Cooler things.” Of course, both the pleasure derived from subverting IKEA’s instructions and the desire for a system to do ‘cooler things’ come from a fairly privileged perspective. For most of the world, things which func


furniture p g.13

ัญ picture

on right ikea hacking. hybrid chair design made up of differned ikea chairs

ัญ picture

below eames hacking. eames design turned into kids high chair


What hackers do is figur to share this informat

ัญ far left is cheese grater chandelier made of ikea products. ัญ top right hypbrid made of ikea lamps and spare wood. ัญ bottom right homemade slide projector made up of ikea lamp parts and various ikea resources.


furniture p g.15

Emmanuel Goldstein.

re out technology and experiment with it in ways many people never imagined. They also have a strong desire tion with others and to explain it to people whose only qualification may be the desire to learn.

“Hackers do what they do…”, says researcher Julian Bleecker of the Near Future Laboratory, “not necessarily because they are designing something in the sense of disciplined design. They are making a thing – and often that thing doesn’t look finished, which is almost part of the hacking sensibility… Bringing hacking to design can be unstable, but what hacking practices can teach are important – rapid construction, an appreciation and understanding of things that go below the surface features and bringing functionality into the design process.”6 Increased activity surrounding design and hacking has spawned a small industry of websites and publications engaging with this growing trend. Readymade magazine illustrates the craft and ingenuity of the individual as he or she goes about various home improvements using re-used and re-purposed material; while Instructables.org has become the de-facto reposi-

tory for instructions, videos and advice on how to hack almost anything one encounters in daily life. Make magazine has taken the hacker’s creed as a call to action. Its manifesto, “The Maker’s Bill of Rights”, calls on manufacturers to follow such hackable principles as “if it snaps shut, it shall snap open”, and “screws are better than glues”. One of the most iconic projects to emerge from hacking’s infusion into the world of design is the global IKEA Hacker initiative. IKEA Hacker is an unofficial network of design hackers who share a passion for reworking YKEA products on their own terms and creating designs IKEA never planned. Assembling the flat-packed furniture of one of the world’s most ubiquitous contemporary design brands and interpreting the language-neutral instructions are a rite of passage of


ัญ far left a full view of a 3d printed 120mm camera. ัญ top left shows the top views of the camera. ัญ bottom left shows the loading side of the camera, a long with the camera film forwarding crank.


photography p g.17

þҕoŧǿgӆaphy any new apartment dweller or university student. But what if, comes the IKEA Hacker project, you assembled the furniture in a different way than IKEA tells you? This simple question has birthed thousands of new creations from YKEA’s set range of products. A Fjus bookshelf is assembled ‘alternatively’ from the instructions to make a pet’s feeding and watering station. Kitchen units are re-assembled to become garage workshop stations. Salad tongs are fastened together to become light fixtures, and desks become children’s playpens. Often the hackers will take the time to document the steps needed to imitate their hacks and make them available online, enabling an entire alternative product line to run parallel to the one in the catalogue. IKEA Hacker has become something of a universal illustration of the interplay between hack-

ing and design – ignore the issued instructions and devise your own. As well as the personal pleasure of making a unique or idiosyncratic product, there is an intellectual challenge in thoroughly understanding the intended rules of the designed object, then creating your own version according to your own rules. Phone hacker Draper shared this motivation. Though vilified by the media as the man who almost brought down America’s phone system in the 1970s, that was never the intention of his hacks. For him, “it was about taking the system apart, to make the thing better. To make it do better things. Cooler things.” Of course, both the pleasure derived from subverting IKEA’s instructions and the desire for a system to do ‘cooler things’ come from a fairly privileged perspective. For most of the world, things which func


Ansel Adams You don’t take a photograph, you make it.

In 1969 Victor Papanek argued that the professionalization of design had separated it from the “real world”. Design cannot be separated from everyday life, he wrote, and by elevating its trained practitioners as professionals from those who are not so trained (amateurs), design begins to reference only itself, and fails to address real problems faced by real people. In this process of professionalization, trial-and-error creativity has been lost. Hacking puts it back into the equation. Hacking is about overcoming the limitations of an existing object, service or system which was set for one purpose, and finding an access point, intellectually or physically, where its original function can be expanded, altered, or improved to serve a new purpose or solve a problem. Hacking is not about aesthetics as much as purpose – the ultimate union of form and function. This camea was completly made of

ѭ the

images on the right are of a 3d printed medium format camera. designed to take normal 120mm film stocks. comes with different f/ stop attachements to change depth of field.


photography p g.19



music p g.21

mчѯīς any new apartment dweller or university student. But what if, comes the IKEA Hacker project, you assembled the furniture in a different way than IKEA tells you? This simple question has birthed thousands of new creations from YKEA’s set range of products. A Fjus bookshelf is assembled ‘alternatively’ from the instructions to make a pet’s feeding and watering station. Kitchen units are re-assembled to become garage workshop stations. Salad tongs are fastened together to become light fixtures, and desks become children’s playpens. Often the hackers will take the time to document the steps needed to imitate their hacks and make them available online, enabling an entire alternative product line to run parallel to the one in the catalogue. IKEA Hacker has become something of a universal illustration of the interplay between hack-

ing and design – ignore the issued instructions and devise your own. As well as the personal pleasure of making a unique or idiosyncratic product, there is an intellectual challenge in thoroughly understanding the intended rules of the designed object, then creating your own version according to your own rules. Phone hacker Draper shared this motivation. Though vilified by the media as the man who almost brought down America’s phone system in the 1970s, that was never the intention of his hacks. For him, “it was about taking the system apart, to make the thing better. To make it do better things. Cooler things.” Of course, both the pleasure derived from subverting IKEA’s instructions and the desire for a system to do ‘cooler things’ come from a fairly privileged perspective. For most of the world, things which func


He who approaches the temple of the Muses without inspiration in the belief that craftsmanship alone suffi presumptuous poetry will be obscured by the songs of the maniacs.

full range speakers Any new apartment dweller or university student. But what if, comes the IKEA Hacker project, you assembled the furniture in a different way than IKEA tells you? This simple question has birthed thousands of new creations from YKEA’s set range of products. A Fjus bookshelf is assembled ‘alternatively’ from the instructions to make a pet’s feeding and watering station. Kitchen units are re-assembled to become garage workshop stations. Salad tongs are fastened together to become light fixtures, and desks become children’s playpens. Often the hackers will take the time to document the steps needed to imitate their hacks and make them available online, enabling an entire alternative product line to run parallel to the one in the catalogue. IKEA Hacker has become something of a universal illustration of the interplay between hack-

ing and design – ignore the issued instructions and devise your own. As well as the personal pleasure of making a unique or idiosyncratic product, there is an intellectual challenge in thoroughly understanding the intended rules of the designed object, then creating your own version according to your own rules. Phone hacker Draper shared this motivation. Though vilified by the media as the man who almost brought down America’s phone system in the 1970s, that was never the intention of his hacks. For him, “it was about taking the system apart, to make the thing better. To make it do better things. Cooler things.” Of course, both the pleasure derived from subverting IKEA’s instructions and the desire for a system to do ‘cooler things’ come from a fairly privileged perspective. For most of the world, things which func

ѭ far

right is a rear loaded horn design used for desktop speakers.

ѭ the speakers were designed with old 1.75 inch emac full range drivers. ѭ right top images shows where the bass wavelenght is released from the box design


music p g.23

Plato fices, will remain a bungler and his

Đś materials wood saw wood glue sand paper full range speakers from an old emac-intosh



music p g.25

home made tube amps Any new apartment dweller or university student. But what if, comes the IKEA Hacker project, you assembled the furniture in a different way than IKEA tells you? This simple question has birthed thousands of new creations from YKEA’s set range of products. A Fjus bookshelf is assembled ‘alternatively’ from the instructions to make a pet’s feeding and watering station. Kitchen units are re-assembled to become garage workshop stations. Salad tongs are fastened together to become light fixtures, and desks become children’s playpens. Often the hackers will take the time to document the steps needed to imitate their hacks and make them available online, enabling an entire alternative product line to run parallel to the one in the catalogue. IKEA Hacker has become something of a universal illustration of the interplay between hack-

ing and design – ignore the issued instructions and devise your own. As well as the personal pleasure of making a unique or idiosyncratic product, there is an intellectual challenge in thoroughly understanding the intended rules of the designed object, then creating your own version according to your own rules. Phone hacker Draper shared this motivation. Though vilified by the media as the man who almost brought down America’s phone system in the 1970s, that was never the intention of his hacks. For him, “it was about taking the system apart, to make the thing better. To make it do better things. Cooler things.” Of course, both the pleasure derived from subverting IKEA’s instructions and the desire for a system to do ‘cooler things’ come from a fairly privileged perspective. For most of the world, things which func

ѭ far

left classic tube amps used by the military between the 1940-1970’s tube amps design has changed very little since they first arrose.

ѭ left

close up of the push and pull tubes and tube controllers.


Davide Taricani Hacking tube amps is gratifying, but when you hear what your speakers have to offer after the hack, now that is a priceless experience.

Any new apartment dweller or university student. But what if, comes the IKEA Hacker project, you assembled the furniture in a different way than IKEA tells you? This simple question has birthed thousands of new creations from YKEA’s set range of products. A Fjus bookshelf is assembled ‘alternatively’ from the instructions to make a pet’s feeding and watering station. Kitchen units are re-assembled to become garage workshop stations. Salad tongs are fastened together to become light fixtures, and desks become children’s playpens. Often the hackers will take the time to document the steps needed to imitate their hacks and make them available online, enabling an entire alternative product line to run parallel to the one in the catalogue. IKEA Hacker has become something of a universal illustration of the interplay between hack-

ing and design – ignore the issued instructions and devise your own. As well as the personal pleasure of making a unique or idiosyncratic product, there is an intellectual challenge in thoroughly understanding the intended rules of the designed object, then creating your own version according to your own rules. Phone hacker Draper shared this motivation. Though vilified by the media as the man who almost brought down America’s phone system in the 1970s, that was never the intention of his hacks. For him, “it was about taking the system apart, to make the thing better. To make it do better things. Cooler things.” Of course, both the pleasure derived from subverting IKEA’s instructions and the desire for a system to do ‘cooler things’ come from a fairly privileged perspective. For most of the world, things which func

ѭ right bottom side of a tube amp, complete re-wireing from origianl 1960 military spec amp. bottom side of the far right amp. ѭ middle homemade digital preamp with tube installed. ѭ far right refurbished amp with a similar design unfinished.


music p g.27


uӆbaπ ҕaςkѯ nothing but the pictures in the book to guide him, he then visited a local scrap yard to source materials that would roughly serve the function of the windmills parts – a tractor fan, shock absorber, #VV piping, and other components. Kamkwamba set about assembling the parts with the pictures of advanced wind turbines as a guide, and at the center of the home-made wind generator was a bicycle, providing the frame of the machine and an efficient power transfer mechanism – the pedals, chain, and rear wheel of the bike. Hacking methodologies have been particularly useful in developing nations for increasing the functionality of mobile phones and deploying the bicycle to serve other needs. They are equally useful in addressing one of the mightiest and most impenetrable systems in Western culture as well – the interlinked system of municipal


urban p g.29

In many ways, the city itself is emblematic of the tension between dictated use and the resourcefulness of the hacker. The physical landscape of the city is deliberately designed to be a solid, non- malleable terrain of order and structure. Buildings, pavements, bridges and walls shape our movement and define our limitations. But as with any structured system, its limitations can become catalysts for creativity. Enter skateboarders, freewheel bikers, parkour/ freerunners, urban climbers and explorers. These are the frontline of urban hackers, viewing the city as a literal playground. Stair railings are now ramps. Walls are balancing beams. Rooftops are launching platforms. This brand of hacker creates an infinite amount of space from the finite confines of the city. They create new paths of travel, inventing new possibilities and layering new dimensions on the estab-

lished structure of the city. The extension of a hacking mentality at work in the modern urban landscape is endless – graffiti artists using the surfaces of the city as a canvas and message board, street vendors viewing the heavily trafficked and tourist areas of the city as makeshift commercial zones. Hacking has now gone beyond these terrain trespasses to begin addressing the shortcomings of the city’s systems and processes. There are obvious reasons for the rules and regulations at work in the city, but often they focus more on prohibition than permission; on what you can’t rather than what you can do in and to shared spaces and services. To invoke Henry Ford again, citizens can engage with public services any way they like – within the set list of rules. A number of individuals and organisations have taken it upon themselves to engage in what could be


Murphy Armitage One of the greatest pleasure in this life is going places your not suppose to go.

city plan hacks In many ways, the city itself is emblematic of the tension between dictated use and the resourcefulness of the hacker. The physical landscape of the city is deliberately designed to be a solid, non- malleable terrain of order and structure. Buildings, pavements, bridges and walls shape our movement and define our limitations. But as with any structured system, its limitations can become catalysts for creativity. Enter skateboarders, freewheel bikers, parkour/ freerunners, urban climbers and explorers. These are the frontline of urban hackers, viewing the city as a literal playground. Stair railings are now ramps. Walls are balancing beams. Rooftops are launching platforms. This brand of hacker creates an infinite amount of space from the finite confines of the city. They create new paths of travel, inventing new pos-

sibilities and layering new dimensions on the established structure of the city. The extension of a hacking mentality at work in the modern urban landscape is endless – graffiti artists using the surfaces of the city as a canvas and message board, street vendors viewing the heavily trafficked and tourist areas of the city as makeshift commercial zones. Hacking has now gone beyond these terrain trespasses to begin addressing the shortcomings of the city’s systems and processes. There are obvious reasons for the rules and regulations at work in the city, but often they focus more on prohibition than permission; on what you can’t rather than what you can do in and to shared spaces and services. To invoke Henry Ford again, citizens can engage with public services any

ѭ far left is an image shot at the top of a skyscraper on the outside of dt chicago. ѭ left image is the floor plan meeting to sewers that made the mission possible


urban p g.3 1

Đś materials carabiners climbing rope harness mask


Frank Zappa

Art is making something out of nothing and selling it.

∫iπε aӆŧ ҕaςkѯ any new apartment dweller or university student. But what if, comes the IKEA Hacker project, you assembled the furniture in a different way than IKEA tells you? This simple question has birthed thousands of new creations from YKEA’s set range of products. A Fjus bookshelf is assembled ‘alternatively’ from the instructions to make a pet’s feeding and watering station. Kitchen units are re-assembled to become garage workshop stations. Salad tongs are fastened together to become light fixtures, and desks become children’s playpens. Often the hackers will take the time to document the steps needed to imitate their hacks and make them available online, enabling an entire alternative product line to run parallel to the one in the catalogue. IKEA Hacker has become something of a universal illustration of the interplay between hack-

ing and design – ignore the issued instructions and devise your own. As well as the personal pleasure of making a unique or idiosyncratic product, there is an intellectual challenge in thoroughly understanding the intended rules of the designed object, then creating your own version according to your own rules. Phone hacker Draper shared this motivation. Though vilified by the media as the man who almost brought down America’s phone system in the 1970s, that was never the intention of his hacks. For him, “it was about taking the system apart, to make the thing better. To make it do better things. Cooler things.” Of course, both the pleasure derived from subverting IKEA’s instructions and the desire for a system to do ‘cooler things’ come from a fairly privileged perspective. For most of the world, things which func

ѭ far right is the finished statue after assembledge and finishing. ѭ top right is an image of the statue after the cuts and inverting of its 4 pieces. ѭ bottom right is an image of the first cuts of the statue with the band saw. taping it to keep it stable on the saw.


fine art p g.3 3

4x4 lumber deconstruction

cut 1

Đś materials redwood 4x4 band saw wood glue sand paper finishing wax

cut2


ѭ far left is another image of the wood statue turned 25’ ѭ left is another image of the wooden statue tuned 90’


fine art p g.3 5

any new apartment dweller or university student. But what if, comes the IKEA Hacker project, you assembled the furniture in a different way than IKEA tells you? This simple question has birthed thousands of new creations from YKEA’s set range of products. A Fjus bookshelf is assembled ‘alternatively’ from the instructions to make a pet’s feeding and watering station. Kitchen units are re-assembled to become garage workshop stations. Salad tongs are fastened together to become light fixtures, and desks become children’s playpens. Often the hackers will take the time to document the steps needed to imitate their hacks and make them available online, enabling an entire alternative product line to run parallel to the one in the catalogue. IKEA Hacker has become something of a universal illustration of the interplay between hacking and design – ignore the issued instructions and

devise your own. As well as the personal pleasure of making a unique or idiosyncratic product, there is an intellectual challenge in thoroughly understanding the intended rules of the designed object, then creating your own version according to your own rules. Phone hacker Draper shared this motivation. Though vilified by the media as the man who almost brought down America’s phone system in the 1970s, that was never the intention of his hacks. For him, “it was about taking the system apart, to make the thing better. To make it do better things. Cooler things.” Of course, both the pleasure derived from subverting IKEA’s instructions and the desire for a system to do ‘cooler things’ come from a fairly privileged perspective. For most of the world, things which func


Milton Glaser To design is to communicate clearly by whatever means you can control or master.

gӆaphic aӆŧ ҕaςkѯ any new apartment dweller or university student. But what if, comes the IKEA Hacker project, you assembled the furniture in a different way than IKEA tells you? This simple question has birthed thousands of new creations from YKEA’s set range of products. A Fjus bookshelf is assembled ‘alternatively’ from the instructions to make a pet’s feeding and watering station. Kitchen units are re-assembled to become garage workshop stations. Salad tongs are fastened together to become light fixtures, and desks become children’s playpens. Often the hackers will take the time to document the steps needed to imitate their hacks and make them available online, enabling an entire alternative product line to run parallel to the one in the catalogue. IKEA Hacker has become something of a universal illustration of the interplay between hack-

ing and design – ignore the issued instructions and devise your own. As well as the personal pleasure of making a unique or idiosyncratic product, there is an intellectual challenge in thoroughly understanding the intended rules of the designed object, then creating your own version according to your own rules. Phone hacker Draper shared this motivation. Though vilified by the media as the man who almost brought down America’s phone system in the 1970s, that was never the intention of his hacks. For him, “it was about taking the system apart, to make the thing better. To make it do better things. Cooler things.” Of course, both the pleasure derived from subverting IKEA’s instructions and the desire for a system to do ‘cooler things’ come from a fairly privileged perspective. For most of the world, things which func

ѭ far right is a type specimen poster of the typeface queous. it aslo doubles as the poster for this exhibit


cap-height exhibition info date : Fri, Sept. 13 2013 @ 8pm. local : Art Center South Campus sponsored : by CalTECH and ArtCenter

Ҕaςkīπҩ ŧҕε жǿӆι∂ x-height

an exhibition of hacks

typeface

ðÞς∂ε∫ҩҕīιѫΪѭπǿþ φӆѯŧчѷжӽψ≤ ΏßӬϑξƒҨҔĪſѪΪѬЛØѣ ỢԄξŦЦѶЖӼΨΣ

baseline

Type specimen

queous

weight bold 78pt lower case

ðÞς∂ε∫ҩҕīιѫΪѭπǿþ φӆѯŧчѷжӽψ≤ upper case

ΏßӬϑξƒҨҔĪſѪΪѬЛØѣ ỢԄξŦЦѶЖӼΨΣ translation

abcdefghijklmnop qrstuvwxyz description

abcdefghijklmnop qrstuvwxyz

descender

Queous is a typeface completely based off of Roboto designed by Christian Robertson at Google. The letters have been swapped out for glyphs with a similar appearance to it’s Latin characteristics, but from Greek and Cyrillic alphabets of completely different characters. The is an anti-Optical Character Recognition device with the intention of blocking the N.S.A. and other organizations from intruding on ones private messages, chat, email, etc.

usage

∫чςѫ ŧҕε Л.ξ.Ώ.

graphic art p g.3 7

Ҕaςѫīπҩ īѯ εѷεӆψжҕεӆε aπ∂ ςaπ Þε aþþιīε∂ ŧǿ εѷεӆψŧҕīπҩ.


ςǿѭpчŧεӆ ҕaςkѯ any new apartment dweller or university student. But what if, comes the IKEA Hacker project, you assembled the furniture in a different way than IKEA tells you? This simple question has birthed thousands of new creations from YKEA’s set range of products. A Fjus bookshelf is assembled ‘alternatively’ from the instructions to make a pet’s feeding and watering station. Kitchen units are re-assembled to become garage workshop stations. Salad tongs are fastened together to become light fixtures, and desks become children’s playpens. Often the hackers will take the time to document the steps needed to imitate their hacks and make them available online, enabling an entire alternative product line to run parallel to the one in the catalogue. IKEA Hacker has become something of a universal illustration of the interplay between hack-

ing and design – ignore the issued instructions and devise your own. As well as the personal pleasure of making a unique or idiosyncratic product, there is an intellectual challenge in thoroughly understanding the intended rules of the designed object, then creating your own version according to your own rules. Phone hacker Draper shared this motivation. Though vilified by the media as the man who almost brought down America’s phone system in the 1970s, that was never the intention of his hacks. For him, “it was about taking the system apart, to make the thing better. To make it do better things. Cooler things.” Of course, both the pleasure derived from subverting IKEA’s instructions and the desire for a system to do ‘cooler things’ come from a fairly privileged perspective. For most of the world, things which func

ѭ far left is compute built to macintosh specifications with out one macintosh piece of hardware. all pc parts make up the hackintosh ѭ right images show different views of the gtx 660 ti graphics cards. they’re technically unsupported gpu cards, but since the card is the base of gtx 680 it is 100% supported by native osx drivers


computer p g.3 9

hackintosh build materials

motherboard w/ intel chipset supported processor quadcore supported graphics card x2 fast memmory 24gb. fast hard drives x4 RAID pci card power supply 1000watt case to put it in good monitor 25in. Mountain Lion Installer Grand total:$1,700

macintosh build materials

mac pro processor quadcore graphics card x2 memmory 24gb. hard drives x4 no monitor Grand total:$4,722 hackintosh build from all PC parts, this computer runs faster than the most decked out mac pro, but you can get it all for a 1/3 of the price.


Murphy Armitage Why pay for a Macintosh anymore? They are no different from a PC, since Apple droped power-PC processing and made the switch to Intel Chipsets, every single computer with an Intel Chip inside is basically just a PC even if it has a Macintosh logo on the side of it.

any new apartment dweller or university student. But what if, comes the IKEA Hacker project, you assembled the furniture in a different way than IKEA tells you? This simple question has birthed thousands of new creations from YKEA’s set range of products. A Fjus bookshelf is assembled ‘alternatively’ from the instructions to make a pet’s feeding and watering station. Kitchen units are re-assembled to become garage workshop stations. Salad tongs are fastened together to become light fixtures, and desks become children’s playpens. Often the hackers will take the time to document the steps needed to imitate their hacks and make them available online, enabling an entire alternative product line to run parallel to the one in the catalogue. IKEA Hacker has become something of a universal illustration of the interplay between hack-

ing and design – ignore the issued instructions and devise your own. As well as the personal pleasure of making a unique or idiosyncratic product, there is an intellectual challenge in thoroughly understanding the intended rules of the designed object, then creating your own version according to your own rules. Phone hacker Draper shared this motivation. Though vilified by the media as the man who almost brought down America’s phone system in the 1970s, that was never the intention of his hacks. For him, “it was about taking the system apart, to make the thing better. To make it do better things. Cooler things.” Of course, both the pleasure derived from subverting IKEA’s instructions and the desire for a system to do ‘cooler things’ come from a fairly privileged perspective. For most of the world, things which func

ѭ far left is a picture of the whole build. ѭ right is a close up to the water cooled radiator for cpu. no mac pro comes with stock water cooling.


computer p g.41


Emmanuel Goldstein. if you’re smart, you’ll be observing street innovation and applying this to inform and infuse what and how you design.

þҕoπε ҕaςking any new apartment dweller or university student. But what if, comes the IKEA Hacker project, you assembled the furniture in a different way than IKEA tells you? This simple question has birthed thousands of new creations from YKEA’s set range of products. A Fjus bookshelf is assembled ‘alternatively’ from the instructions to make a pet’s feeding and watering station. Kitchen units are re-assembled to become garage workshop stations. Salad tongs are fastened together to become light fixtures, and desks become children’s playpens. Often the hackers will take the time to document the steps needed to imitate their hacks and make them available online, enabling an entire alternative product line to run parallel to the one in the catalogue. They have all kinds of stuff taht is great IKEA Hacker has become something of a universal il-

lustration of the interplay between hacking and design – ignore the issued instructions and devise your own. As well as the personal pleasure of making a unique or idiosyncratic product, there is an intellectual challenge in thoroughly understanding the intended rules of the designed object, then creating your own version according to your own rules. Phone hacker Draper shared this motivation. Though vilified by the media as the man who almost brought down America’s phone system in the 1970s, that was never the intention of his hacks. For him, “it was about taking the system apart, to make the thing better. To make it do better things. Cooler things.” Of course, both the pleasure derived from subverting IKEA’s instructions and the desire for a system to do ‘cooler things’ come from a fairly privileged per-

ѭ far right is of an android periferal that helps communicate with the hearing impaired via a glove that pics up the signs in use and transmits them to a smartphone app if a translator is not present. ѭ right images depict the coding and hardware hacks necessary to get to the final working product.


phone p g.43


ัญ far left is one of printers available on hack van. most of the in the hackathon were these printers.

the 3-d the motodev parts used produced on

ัญ left, shows some of the parts lazer cut and used on a traffic safety bike vest.


phone p g.45

any new apartment dweller or university student. But what if, comes the IKEA Hacker project, you assembled the furniture in a different way than IKEA tells you? This simple question has birthed thousands of new creations from YKEA’s set range of products. A Fjus bookshelf is assembled ‘alternatively’ from the instructions to make a pet’s feeding and watering station. Kitchen units are re-assembled to become garage workshop stations. Salad tongs are fastened together to become light fixtures, and desks become children’s playpens. Often the hackers will take the time to document the steps needed to imitate their hacks and make them available online, enabling an entire alternative product line to run parallel to the one in the catalogue. IKEA Hacker has become something of a universal illustration of the interplay between hack-

ing and design – ignore the issued instructions and devise your own. As well as the personal pleasure of making a unique or idiosyncratic product, there is an intellectual challenge in thoroughly understanding the intended rules of the designed object, then creating your own version according to your own rules. Phone hacker Draper shared this motivation. Though vilified by the media as the man who almost brought down America’s phone system in the 1970s, that was never the intention of his hacks. For him, “it was about taking the system apart, to make the thing better. To make it do better things. Cooler things.” Of course, both the pleasure derived from subverting IKEA’s instructions and the desire for a system to do ‘cooler things’ come from a fairly privileged perspective. For most of the world, things which func


follow these guidlines 1. Hack the world and make it open source. the more people that hop on hack projects the greater the chance of discovery of new mediums and technologies. 2. Then post all your findings, if someone else hasn’t already figured it out by now, someone else is looking for the same answers you are. 3. Repeat steps 1-2.


g.45 colophon p g.47

ςǿlǿþhǿπ Hack the World exhibit was put together by Art Center College of Design, PsyARCH, along with CalTech. The show exhibited artwork that meets right between art and science and uses the two to make a product of software much greater than originally intended. artists: Murphy Armitage Davide Taricani Daniel Bromberg Vest Pissaro Shirley Rodriguez Sean Keenan


Ҕaςkīπҩ ŧҕε жǿӆι∂ an exhibition of hacks


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