16 Years ago, a series of talks by Johl and Pylon on Hackspace Design Patterns sparked an international revolution. Within a few months tens of new Hackspaces were founded all over the world. And while the fun lasted for a while, we are now in the midst of a global crisis, that its least is urgently asking for mitigation strategies. At Bio-Hack-Spaces we create mycelium based build materials, research new ways of growing (or foraging) our own food, build technological bridges to nudge nature in our desired direction or tinker on devices that help us to better understand our surroundings.
The Biopunk movement is in almost every regard comparable to the old school hacker movement. It is about resilience, creativity and autonomy. And yet, there is one fundamental difference: While you bend a computer to your will, you can only politely ask anything that lives. So in that sense, Biopunk is about understanding that we aren’t separated from nature, we are nature. And nature will teach us something that society needs more than anything else: the ability to listen.