Even though they were meant to be like cookbooks, they unfortunately missed a
central point of cookbooks; the visual appetite of leafing through them. Perhaps
the essays made them look more complicated than they were. Possibly putting the
small intervention kit in the front instead of the back would have helped making
them more accessible as the reader would immediately spot what the kit was about
and not require him to read to the end to find it. This all turned out to be a bit too
complex, and not very accessible in a shop-format. Paradoxically my cookbooks
were not that popular, in a time when there seems to be new best-selling cook-
books every week in the bookshops. Perhaps my ingredients did not seem appetiz-
ing, or there were too few tasty-looking glossy colour photographs. There is a lot to
be worked on for the coming seasons.
Nevertheless, I am sure I will continue to make new collections of kits, but they will
be improved in openness, and sold as single objects. Their folded A4 format makes
them easily adaptable to new contents and they are also DIY-friendly; print, as-
semble, fold, and glue. The shop display will need to be elaborated on, as well as
their overall accessibility for the fashion target-group. I will need to find easier
ways of access to help people enter the world of Abstract Accessories.
&
Throughout this chapter we have followed various lines of practice closely relating
to the abstract machine of hacktivism. We have seen how energies within several
systems have been reverse engineered, mapped, short circuited and reconnected
through creative manoeuvres, for the most part done by amateurs who have shared
their methods and open codes for others to build on. Computer hackers have re-
vealed new ways of operating with computers, circuit benders have liberated si-
lenced noises to form a whole new music scene and shopdroppers have made gen-
der biased toys reveal their true selves. Even though these practices often have a
tendency of making playful pranks, we have also seen a deeper connection between
their work and a new form of politics, be it craftivist protests against war or multi-
tudes of hackers engage in a new form of Marxist class struggle.
A tendency running through these examples has been to “ride” existing flows of
energy, play with technologies and sign systems, or use existing infrastructures in
new unpredictable ways and for their own ends. Activists bend the intensities into
the commons for others to build on. Using various examples this has been con-
nected to fashion and discussed at length through González’ Hacking-Couture
project where workshop participants worked on their “clothing competence” by
learning to read and reprogram the “code” of famous brands. Finally we have seen
how my ReForm cookbooks and Abstract Accessories were first attempts to con-
nect the abstract machine of hacktivism into the world of fashion with the help of
“instructables”. These are all examples of intersecting lines of practice where the
interfaces of the fashion world are reverse engineered and opened for others to
intervene into the system, plant new seeds for action and nurture these in future
projects.