virtuosity.” (Levy 1994: 23) But hacking can also be
used to meaning of reclaiming authorship (or co-
authorship) of a technology by supporting trans-
parency and unanticipated use. It is a critical as well
as playful activity circling around a Do-It-Yourself
approach to the means for our interaction with the
world, circumventing unwanted limitations and
control systems proposed by others.
In this way a hack goes beyond customization, or
“pimping”, even if it hard to draw a strict border be-
tween the two phenomena. Where customization
offers a controlled and limited amount of options
for change, hacking is in this sense the “colouring
outside the lines”. It is modifying something beyond
the predefined design field of original intensions
and customization parameters. It is about scratch-
ing ones own itch, but using unexpected methods.
Hacking is to find an own way, to encourage explo-
ration, putting curiosity into action, but also shar-
ing this for others to build upon.
In this way, a hack can be seen as a deeper interven-
tion rather than a customization. It is a tactic for
“cultural counterintelligence” (Becker, K 2002), ani-
mated and anti-authoritarian, seizing back imagina-
tion subjugated by technocrats or the narrow mind-
edness of specific company solutions. By sharing, it
is decentralizing control and empowering users at a
low level to open a multiplicity of ways for manipu-
lation. In Richard Stallman’s words it is about “ex-
ploring the limits of what is possible, in a spirit of
playful cleverness.” (Stallman 2002)
A predominant feature in hacking is the explora-
tion, or archaeological excavation of hidden proper-
ties in hardware or software. It is centred on a deep
and practical curiosity into the substrata of code or
matter. In this way it is questioning the concepts of
ownership and control. As the motto of the DIY
magazine Make says; “if you can’t open it, you don’t
own it” (Jalopy 2005). This practice of hardware
tinkering takes many shapes, and does not only take
technical skills to make it work. According to the
media theorist McKenzie Wark hacking is “at once
an aesthetic and an ethic” and requires cooperation
as much as individual skill and inventiveness. (Wark
2006: 320)
Hacking in this sense is based on some topics closely
connected to DIY culture and connoting mastery in
a most literal sense, of making a computer, or any
tool or system, do what the hacker wants, whether
the initial constructor wants it or not. Hacking is a
wide practice, yet it can be condensed to some cen-
tral points, as illustrated by social researcher Anne
Galloway:
• Access to a technology and knowledge about
it (“transparency”).
• Empowering users.
• Decentralizing control.
• Creating beauty and exceeding limitations.
(Galloway, Anne 2004)
To these points could also be added; “using the intel-
ligence of many for innovation, and sharing it freely”,
as the hacker ethic is based on a notion of collabora-
tion and building on existing code, often summed
up with author Stewart Brand’s quote that “informa-
tion wants to be free” (Brand 1985: 49).
Hacking is also about creating good implementa-
tions or beautiful possibilities, a classic mastery of
skills or craftsmanship. Not only in an aesthetic sense
but also in the way mathematicians call good work
“beautiful”. Like an answer to the practical question
“how do you make good stuff?” (Graham 2004)^ It
has a suggestive character, inspiring to further explo-
rations due to its simplicity and revealing openness.
In a world where technology becomes more ubiqui-
tous and disappears from view, the hack is bringing
political questions of access back into the light, sub-
verting or politicizing closed and hidden functions
and uses of networks.
Central to hacking is a practice of re-design, further-
ing the central copy and paste commands of pro-
gramming and the digital realm. It is more about us-
ing existing functions, subsystems and parts by
creating patchwork and crossover techniques, rather
than creating something entirely new or truly
unique.
In this way hacking can be seen as a design of de-
signs, or a design for design. Part of its purpose is to
offer pieces for other to build with, not to finish
something and to build walls around it. This be-
comes visible in programming where one part of the
code is the functions, the code written for the com-
puter. The other part of the code are the comments,
the lines written after the functions to help a future
reader, other than the programmer, to understand
what the code is about, what it does and the thinking
of the programmer. In this way hacking is creating
building blocks, like Lego pieces or the Japanese
fashion designers Issey Miyake’s and Dai Fujuwara’s