Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Medienwissenschaft

What kinds of spaces are produced when the radical practices of once-rebellious digital subcultures, like those of hackers and makers, are institutionalised? This talk examines the recent phenomenon of ‘collections makerspaces’, or public spaces within cultural institutions that offer free suites of creative tools aimed at inspiring new interactions with cultural works through digital making and peer production practices. The talk will begin by locating these spaces within a wider history of sociotechnical transformations across museum spaces and shared machine shop spaces (from hackspaces to media labs) that have occurred in Britain since the 1970s, a set of negotiations which have become increasingly dominated by corporate and institutional interests. Findings will then be explored from a year-long ethnography of collections makerspaces within the museums of Tate, British Museum and Wellcome Collection in London, examining how the spatiality of each site is continually produced from the social relations and imaginaries of human and machine actors. In conclusion, it will be argued that the collections makerspace is emerging as a site of critical institutional inquiry, where the hegemonic power relations of cultural institutions can be examined, contested and transformed.

(Vortrag in englischer Sprache)