In 2021, restricted in our ability to meet together in shared physical spaces, our vision of the virtual expanded. Even as online spaces threatened to produce greater alienation and accelerated destruction, we took an opportunity to hack our own presence there. The fovea is the center of vision, the area of sight on which the eye’s perception concentrates. But it’s not a complete picture. Looking off the fovea is a practice of removing this center of focus, making space for new connections on a creative, technical, and collaborative level. We were already living in the metaverse; we just hadn’t seen it clearly.
The 2021 Hacklab took place as a fully remote event that reached across the globe. The co-hosts Olivia Jack and Peter Kirn were physically present at a workspace in Berlin – and later at the performance venue silent green Betonhalle – while participants worked remotely in different time zones, joining-in early or staying up late to meet online and create new performances that would be streamed as part of CTM’s pandemic edition.
Despite the remote format, the group explored innovative mechanisms for engaging online audiences. Media used included live coding, virtual spaces, puppetry and object theater, transmitted musical events, radio, data, dance, photography and video, robotics, and singing. Technologies such as VR, AR/xR, OSC, DMX, MIDI, chatrooms, semaphores, gestures, and even smoke signals were employed.
Two livestreamed Hacklab Input talks rounded out the lab's activities: »From Games to Glitch« by Jamie Fenton, and »Subversive Celebration« by Ava Ansari.
| Bruno Gola | Ce Pams |
| Mamady Diarra | Mint Park aka BAKÁH |
| My Panda Shall Fly | Nerve |
| Ruhail Qaisar | Sarah Groff Hennigh-Palermo |
| Tokzhan Karatai | Yifan He |