#london hackspace

[glowingether-blog]

GETTING OUT THERE (RESEARCH)

Tonight I’m going to do my first piece of proper, actually-talking-to-actual-people research.

http://hackoustic.org/  < This is a link to the acoustic hacking group “Hackoustic”, based at the London Hackspace. I’m going to their monthly meetup to start a conversation about their current projects and my ideas, how confusing I currently find the technical/ physics side of sound, and potentially build an instrument from scratch (should be fun). My aim is basically just to learn more about the London community of sound-makers (not so much musicians but makers of new methods of conveying it, and making new types of it through this experimentation). Should be taking some photographs and documenting how it goes (and potentially arranging to meet up again with anyone who’s interested/ wants to talk more!) Excited.

 (More to follow including some stuff about Hackoustic’s current projects and my interest in focussing on women in sound-making, if I’ve got time before I leave...)

[samuelbrowninfo]

This weekend I went along to the very-nearly-cliché double-header of a Restart Project Restart Party and London Hackspace's open day.

Hackspace is a non-profit community-run workshop where the right kind of geek can come to share tools and knowledge, and the Restart Project finds a natural home here - setting out to promote positive behaviour change by encouraging and empowering people to use their electronics for longer.

Too busy to mean that I could easilly get my demented Sennheiser headphones seen to, there was an impressive turn out for both events with newcomers scribbling their problem on the wall-mounted flip-chart and hanging around waiting to be paired up with one of the volunteer electronics experts. In the main room of Hackspace, members were demonstrating self-built 3D printers, radio-masts and wind turbines, or happily tip-tapping and coding away at laptops. The library was pretty impressive, featuring tomes on as diverse a range of topics as blanket-making, software architecture and amateur radio operation.

I have to say, I felt quite alienated - as a non-skilled member but very interested member of the public - and I think this is something that both organisations will need to address if they are to fulfil their long-term ambitions of broadening our ability to make and repair things for ourselves. Simple instructions would help, and although everyone was friendly enough, a welcome of some kind would have eased the passage of the uninitiated.

Good stuff though, and I'll definitely be back to Hackspace and getting myself along to future Restart Parties to shove my headphones under someone's nose...