Hacker-in-Residence Programme

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Testimonials of our Residients of the past

Miranda Moss (Cape Town, South Africa | wuwäähä, Sweden)

Artist / designer Miranda has been popping into SGMK events since 2017. In the period 2020-21 she has been conducting chicken/robot research at Bitwäscherei and Randelab as part of the "Chicken-in-Residence Program", along with Daniel Brownell, co-ran a solar water bot workshop with Dj Livia, joined the Homemade summercamp for the first time where she turned everyone's pee into electricity, continues to collaborate on sound and water geeking with Oli Jäggi, and regularly comes to the 2D OpenLab. She has also become the in-house graphic designer for events, always makes sure everyone has enough beer to drink, and is also the resident anticolonial feminist killjoy.

She says: "I'm super grateful to have had all the time as a hacker in residence at the Bitwäscherei. I am always meeting new amazing and inspiring people, am constantly learning cool things, and new projects and collaborations seem to blossom exponentially. I try to take the spirit of the lab with me on all my travels and to the other global communities I am involved in. Can't wait to return!"

Scott Beibin (Philadelphia, USA)

Liz Cole - Evil Twin Booking Agency (Philadelphia, USA)


Adam Zaretsky (Woodstock, USA | somewhere in Greece)

First I am thankful to Hackteria – Zentrum für Experimentelle Transdisziplinarität (Center for Experimental Transdisciplinariy), Research Node: ReproTech & Art / Germline Hacks and Designer Babies

Including time spent well in the Swiss Embassy of San Francisco and Garage MCA in Moscow working on Methods of Transgenesis and GMO DIY Crispr Baby workshopoligies.

I also do want to than the Swiss Mechatronic Art Society for the time in residence plotting and making a crying machine and exploding miso neck living gooper gore bioart special effects performance.

We got into the wetness of reproductive technology, open source science, and the text to flesh interface of human germline genome editing. We learned how to read GENbank, FASTA, PubMed and SciHub pubs creatively. We got beyond the intimidating complexity by uploading equally as complex analogical and qualitative artistic data including: accordion music, drawings, collages, poetry and experimental video and more.

We involved people from wildly diverse backgrounds and international origins as is normal for Hackteria a global open house for odd, queer and oblique DIYbioart Hacker tweek and freekerz. We also group-geeked hard and stayed ridiculous about reporter genes, safe harbors, inducible promoters, off target mutations and IVF microinjection.

What we did was amazing. Like truly groundbreaking, wildly silly and depth informative. Beyond the call of duty living on the fumes of Marc's covid pay and minky little eth donations... We taught hybrid simultaneous in-person and online/off--ground... which is a form of super depleting heroism. I think it was super inspiring for those involved and has yet to mature but will make a great database if it continues.

Mind thGAP

We made three super relaxed bioinformatics primer labs for public understanding of databases of hereditary data (gene scans and gene scrolls) but also an understanding of the social implication of issues of gene piracy, genetic privacy.

  • Lab 1 - Transgenic Human Genome Alternatives Project (thGAP)
  • Lab 2 - Generic Open-Source Plasmid for Human Arts (GOSPHA)
  • Lab 3 - Creative Germline Constructs Bank (CGCB)

Future Plans: We are going to be making an Open ArtSci Call for Creative Science Fiction Writers, Citizen Bioethicists and Untrained Art Critics to critically review the 5 entries we have compiled online on the CGDB. After that we might put some of the results up on GitHub and then make an NFT of them. Then we will call the World Congress on New Reproductive Technology Arts, for a GLOBAL AESTHETIC RESPONSE TO TRANSGENIC HUMANS AS BIOART and work on updating to a ‘real’ database. Oh yeah, and we did come up with a list of fifteen next steps, all of which are near impossible legally and technically so we should. Finally, we wrote a letter to the WHO Expert Advisory Committee on Developing Global Standards for Governance and Oversight of Human Genome Editing. No word back from them but I am sure they got the message. We might need to get their attention.

https://www.hackteria.org/workshops/thgap/

Dominik Mahnič (Ljubljana, Slovnenia)

Residency gives me rare opportunity to present, discuss and make different new works influenced by people, the enviroment of Bitwesherai and the city of Zurich.

It was an intense experience in a place that offers great working conditions, deep reflections, and a friendly atmosphere.

Zohar Messeca - Fara AKA the idiot | idiot.io (karkun, Israel)

I have been very lucky to escape the israeli wilderness between Covid lockdowns to spend long month’s geeking like an idiot at the Bitwäscherei hackerspace and SGMK activities of the past year.

Had great time sharing my DIY approach and attitude with my latest flexible circuits methods and techniques while spreading idiot.io latest kits and propaganda at multiple workshops.

Met plenty of talented local and international freaks/artists with mutual interests and curiosities.

Also collaborated on several projects with the locals and made plenty of new friends!!

SGMK network is fantastisch!!!

See you soooon!!


Upcoming

Shih Wei-chieh (Taipei, Taiwan)