ABSTRACT : HACK

What is hacking ? The word «Hacking » was first used to qualify pirate radios, it means to distort, to turn away something, it can be in a physical or a digital way. Despite this definition, people have a negative view on hacking because it also refers to malicious activities.
Indeed, we all know the bad side of hacking, from which we are prevented by governments who deploys physical and digital anti-hacking measures, including advertising campaign.In fact, this negative view is shadowing all the creativity, the goodwill and the political side of hacking.
Actually, hacking is political and is often linked to citizen concern. My research focuses on how hacking can emancipate people and how it can be relevant for design. It is based on cases studies in art, design and technics, and on interviews with hackers. A harvest tool has also been used to understand what young people think about hacking. It took place in high-school Le Corbusier which is a skillful place where different students meet. This tool permitted to collect the imaginary of these people, and to conclude that to them, hacking is a malicious and illegal activity. Due to these results, a design project about hacking will have to include mediation.
«Hacker» designate people who enjoy to workaround and do it for the amusement, the joy it provide them.Today the outlook on hacking shows a duality, it either means to workaround, to kludge or to penetrate illegally into something, to steal data. There are different ways to perceive hacking, it can be seen as a creative and ethical process or an illegal threat. When hacking can be an interesting way to process in its form and by its ethic, it’s bad reputation repeals the creative and ethic insights it could bring. In fact this is due to a strong campaign by governments that are trying to avoid question surrounding royalty.To numerous hackers, sharing information and data with others is an ethical imperative. Indeed, they are interrogating copyright and how it carries power relations.In fact, hackers developped free licenses so they could share their codes and discoveries to make these evolve. This way, hackers can collaborate and create free software.Hacking can manifest through different ways. First of all, projects involving a hack contain ethical measures. In his book «The Hacker Ethic and the Spirit of the Information Age» Pekka, Himanen theorizes the hacker’s ethic and describe it as three points: ethic of the network, ethic of work and ethic of money. According to this author, a Hacker should focus on sharing and cooperating.

Hacking and Design

Hacking can be emancipating and to tackle it with design can encourage free thinking. To approach hacking through design is relevant in order to develop autonomous uses, support sharing and encourage sober use of objects around us. It also includes social activism, such as feminism or decolonization and a caring relationship with the living by recycling and handcrafting.
The ethic of free software and free licenses lead to open-design wich allow design projects to legally be free to use, to share, to modify. In design, to hack, so to turn away functions, can emancipate the designer because it brings them to question their use of tools. This approach will also shape their future projects which will interact differently with users. Indeed, the designer can hack through the process of making, but they also can encourage their user to hack. In this sense it means to empower the user by making them manufacture, repair or modifie. For the designer, hacking can take place through coding, reuse, recycle and the making of our own tools.

With my design project, I wish to encourage people to reroute things, especially “closed circuit” : closed objetcs or software wich are sold to be consumed, not understood, modified or repaired.
By proposing DIY and electronic handcraft, I want to raise awareness towards young people about their relationship with software, hardware and objects in general. This project’s goal will be to emancipate young people from consumerist logic. This project will also aim to affect their relationship with the living by approaching feminism and ecology.

Lire le mémoire : Mémoire – Hack TR