Hacker-Spaceship: The Promise of Universal Space in Technology Countercultures

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Hacker-Spaceship: The Promise of Universal Space in Technology Countercultures
Ben Jameson-Ellsmore

Mon, Nov 10, 12PM
Campbell 220B

Ben Jameson-Ellsmore’s talk, “Hacker-Spaceship: The Promise of Universal Space in Technology Countercultures,” explores the prevalent references to fictional space vessels in the nonprofit organizations called hackerspaces. Informed by the references to nautical and space-faring ships in architectural and urban history, he explores the ship as a metaphor for the infrastructural promise or goal of a group or organization. Drawing on recent field research in hackerspaces, Ben argues that the hacker-spaceship metaphor expresses the libertarian hacker fantasy of unimpeded movement through the landscape. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the omni-directional freedom imagined through the hacker-spaceship is more readily available to a hackerspace’s white men. For many other members, hackerspace culture can itself present obstacles to frictionless navigation. 

About the Speaker

Ben Jameson-Ellsmore is a Postdoctoral Research Associate and Lecturer in the Engagements Program at the University of Virginia. In 2023, Ben completed his PhD at the University of California Santa Barbara and worked for the Historic American Buildings Survey. He also co-managed the online journal react/review, a journal for art and architecture prior to coming to UVA. His research focuses on landscapes of housing and labor precarity in contemporary US cities. 

Presented by UVA's Center for Cultural Landscapes as part of the CCL Conversation series.