Tuesday, February 19, 2013

The Good Hack

Metalab is an open hacker space in Vienna, Austria where people can share ideas and get creative with technology.

The space opened its doors in 2006, a many-roomed basement space not far from Vienna's Rathaus (city hall). Visitors can make use of  an unsecured Wi-Fi connection and an array of technology (3-D printers, laser routers, darkroom and more) to help realize any idea about using technology for greater purpose.

Many of those who come consider themselves to be hackers, anyone who wants to unpack systems and put them back together to work better, says Thomas Lohninger, a Metalab regular.

This Friday Metalab will commemorate the loss of internet freedom fighter Aaron Swartz with a daylong hackathon. "As usual, there are will be open WLAN, whiteboards, flipcharts, projector and soft drinks,” according to the announcement on site.

Every event is organized by members and -- with very rare exceptions -- open to the public, according to Lohninger. The not-for-profit organization that operates Metalab, sees itself solely as an infrastructure provider and exerts little influence over projects and events carried out at the lab.

Some images from my visit to the lab on Feb 14:
3-D Printer
Refrigerator Art
Supplies
Unidentified projects
Software and hardware in process
Inverted unicorn
Beer and supplies
Unidentified project
Lounge area

2 comments:

Christian Benke said...

Well, it's actually a souterrain(http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Souterrain), not just a "basement". We have windows to the outside world and real daylight comes in, in summer even some direct rays from the evil daystar!

Timothy Karr said...

Alright - Souterrain it is!