Hacknight 2009 rundown

Oh, what a night! I’m home, have slept, and sitting the garden, typing up this event report.

I started my event day in the afternoon, calling the event site, asking what needed to get fetched from the city. I was tasked with getting the projector for the lasertagging from the activist café in Möllevången, Glassfabriken (Swe. “the ice-cream factory”). A very helpful coffee shop worker dug out the unit for me. “They came in late at night and dumped a PA system right here in the closet, on the space where you can stand.” After thanking her profusely, I set out on foot, balancing the equipment on the back of my bike.

The hike was through excellent weather, and as I was nearing the site, I met monki. We got to talking about the newly torn-down garage near the site. “The gentrification process. The old slogan needs to be updated, people used to say ’stop the gentrification, shoot an artist’. Nowadays it’s hackerspaces that come first to the less popular neighbourhoods.” A man was sweeping up age-old dust and junk from the ground in a nearby commercial building. I’ve never seen any non-guarddog activity there before.

We got supplies from neighbouring big-box store Willys, and went to the site. Dropping off the projector we saw that there were 40 people already checked in to the event. This was already the biggest-ever number of Forskningsavdelningen-related people I ever saw in one place. Hands were shook, and smiles flashed everywhere. I got introduced to the near-mythical mia, met myra (who was building a quite cute little robot). These two ladies are not local, but often visit, and leave excellent builds behind. Many of the locals were also already there, at T minus 4 hours. Quickly, we set out again, to fetch other supplies.

(Interjecting: Luisa’s currently working in the garden, and its charms are working — two ladies from the building have been down in the yard, one talking with Luisa about gardening, and the other bringing down lavender-based cookies for us to taste. The lavender was grown and picked in the yard. A while ago Luisa began her moves to make the yard more social: moved a table and chairs to the grass patch at the center of the yard, had a few meals at that table. Other people in the house got infected, and have been using the table for their breakfasts and evening meals.)

A timeline of events was lettered on A3 sheets of paper, and taped on a wall. Good brushes and well-covering sign paint worked great for that. Myra made a movable “current time cursor”, which pointed at the current talk’s sheet of paper. A hand-drawn map hung on a wall, directing users to activities.

A multi-media performance group was rigging up at the big stage. The workshop ping pong tables were full of ready-to-use equipment. Cooking smells wafted from the kitchen. The bar, which served two beverages (1. off-brand cola, or 2. Jolt Cola), was in full swing. Mattias Elftorp, cyberpunk comics author, was hawking his books there, too. Visitors from afar were milling about, setting up their gear.

Talks began! The cyberpunk author explained his fictional universe. I had to do some event work, carrying, helping out, explaining, so I missed a few of them, but I heard the one about brain hacking & life extension, the one about wireless connection sharing in Tanzania, and I experienced the multi-media band.

In the “Forsk Zone”, longer workshops were held, among them a re-run of “Full-body Arduino Crash Course” from Reboot 11. Also: build a Pong game using an old TV.

We did not count the people, but perhaps 100 people were there, some coming and others going.

Tip: It was a beer-free event, which made for easy cleaning.