Hackteria is a global network active since 2009 of people practicing DIY (do-it-yourself) and DIWO (do-it-with-others) biology, with a focus on art, design and interdisciplinary cooperation. As a online community platform hackteria encourages the collaboration of scientists, hackers and artists to combine their expertise in projects, write critical and theoretical reflections, share simple instructions to work with lifescience technologies with citizen science approach, grassrooted and DIY methods.
Hackteria looks back on a ten year history of organizing workshops, temporary labs, hack-sprints and open gatherings. Our web platform and wiki are online hubs for community interaction, where participants share knowledge on living systems and knowhow on different ways of hacking them. Hacking in our context is borrowed from the term of the Hindi term Jugaad that is a non-conventional, frugal innovation, often termed as “hack”, so to deal and improvise when needs are short and not providable.
Hackteria has so far been existing on a global scope and not based in a physical space. We want to allow artists, scientists, cooks, farmers, philosophers and hackers to collaborate, test and experiment with Science, Art and Tech outside conventional settings such as academic laboratories and art institutions: basically, anywhere in the world.
In 2020, Hackteria launched their new OpenScience Lab in the shared hackerspace collective of Bitwäscherei, in the heart of Zürich
