Interfaces and networks lab

Hangar promotes free culture and knowledge in all computer and software systems. The Lab of interfaces and networks defends a technological positioning -theoretical and practical- based on the precepts of open source and federated infrastructures as ways to react and balance the environmental impact, exclusivity and technological lobbies that not only order our data but also our ways of working and living.

Software and hardware are neither neutral nor immaterial. And consequently, free software is not free either! This confusion is the result of the polysemy of the term “free” (free software). It is unavoidable for us to make a small digression here -as a compromise- against the subsumption by proprietary software corporations operating under the misleading umbrella of open source. It is worth clarifying that when we use the term “free” in relation to software we are referring to its four freedoms: freedom of access, freedom of modification, freedom of redistribution and freedom as a condition that these three freedoms are always possible, principles that open source does not fully protect.

From the Lab of interfaces and networks we propose an extended understanding of the work of code and programming, approaching it from its semiotic-material matrix (gender, colonial or class) and the assimilation of its values by contemporary technological systems, as well as the cultural techniques that deploy ontological, epistemic and aesthetic operations that produce cultural and material situations. We propose practices and reflections to retake and update the concept of technological sovereignty. Therefore, we are challenged by notions such as code, algorithm, data, servers or geopolitical flows of information from non-hegemonic perspectives -or against the self affirmative and declamatory discourses of democratization and digital immateriality- to investigate the cultural technologies that sustain capitalism in its current phase and those that, on the contrary, open fields to counteract its devastating effects.

In the Laboratory we support and promote the use of free tools that guarantee the recognition of their authorship, available to artistic and cultural projects that may need them. At the same time, we provide consulting services to artists, collectives or organizations that are developing or want to develop a project with free software, that may or may not know the technical issues, but that occasionally need support to solve problems, reorient the development or explore alternatives. 
We offer web development services, server, hosting, mail, migration, messaging, streaming, etc, as well as continuous assistance to projects that require specialized technical support. We configure advice, including project models, budget models, budget optimization, and feasibility consultations. This service requires an appointment.

Projects hosted on Hangar’s servers:

Hamaca/ La Escocesa/ Graf/ Xarxaprod/ Dublab/ Quimera Rosa/ Fase.xyz/ Imvec/ Tetramorfas/ Toplap/ Crater Lab/ Ars Electronica Garden Barcelona/ Biofriction/ Arc-hive/ On-the-fly/ Grid Spinoza

For further information
tech(at)hangar.org