Las rupturas son fundamentales para la noción de diseño de Winograd y Flores. Como una situación ‘no evidente’, en la que se interrumpen los enlaces normales que mantienen un cierto sentido de la realidad, una ruptura no es algo negativo sino que ofrece el espacio de posibilidad para la acción —para la creación de dominios en los que puedan tener lugar nuevas conversaciones y conexiones—. Las rupturas se pueden anticipar en cierta medida pero generalmente surgen en la práctica y piden una relación recursiva entre el diseño y la experiencia; la construcción de prototipos puede facilitar esta tarea, ayudando a generar los ámbitos relevantes para anticipar las rupturas y para tratar con ellas cuando surgen (Winograd y Flores 1986: 171). Esto también significa que un aspecto clave del diseño es la creación, a través del lenguaje, de los ámbitos o dominios en los que se generan e interpretan las acciones de las personas. Este es un principio fundamental del diseño centrado en el usuario y hoy incluiría tener en cuenta el diseño del contexto y el diseño de los propios usuarios,

. Mediante el examen de la creación de prototipos como una compleja práctica cultural emergente y la introducción de una meta-reflexión sobre ‘los prototipos de la creación de prototipos’, este proyecto examinó, críticamente, la historicidad de esta práctica; además, destacó la productividad de una práctica de diseño basada en una lógica de experimentación, imaginación, orientación hacia el uso y colaboración que, argumenta, podría informar el trabajo antropológico de manera fructífera (

Inthisinstance,criticsprotestedthatTwitterwasinvolvedincensoringpoliticalcontent,butothershaveshownthatthecomplexalgorithmsoftheplatformorganizeandfiltercontentinwaysoftenbeyondtheintentionsoftheirdesigners.Ratherthanasimplemeasureofpopularity,thealgorithmisbasedonacombinationoffactors,andthosethatTwitterhasrevealedincludeidentifyingtopicsthatareenjoyingasurgeinaparticularway,suchaswhethertheuseofatermisspiking(acceleratingrapidlyratherthangradually),whetherusersofatermformatightsingleclusterorcutacrossmultipleclusters,whethertweetsareuniqueormostlyretweetsofthesamepost,andwhetherthetermhaspreviouslytrended

Material forms give coherence to the civic imagination. For example, Ross (2013) proposed that cultural practices of viewing the city “from above” in plans stimulated city planners’ civic imagination while they applied expertise in the planning process.

To Mills, the imagination was activated according to the structure of society, conceptualization of “the mechanics by which it is changing” (p. 6), and prevailing “varieties” of individuals of the period. Individuals have personal troubles that can be connected with issues of a public matter. The civic imagination has the potential to be activated around deep societal problems, which may involve institutional crises. The civic imagination is closely connected with participation. Castoriadis (1987)diverged from Marx by believing that not all futures were determined by history.Castoriadis believed that society’s future was collectively created and given traction through the imagination. That is, it was only “through the collective agency of the social imaginary that a society is created, given coherence and identity, and also subjected to auto-alterations” (Gaonkar, 2002, p. 7). To Appadurai (1996), the imagination was also intimately related to action because it was only in the service of fulfilling an as-yet unproven goal that we are driven to act.

A more diverse range of participants attended, as civic hackathons were more frequented by community organizers, activists, and students than seasoned software engineers. Those who turned up were also more diverse in ways other than occupation – racially, ethnically, and by gender. These events were largely run by Hack for LA with a wide range of partners. Rarely did sponsors emphasize working code

Might “utopian realist” be applicable to the practices of civic hackers, intertwined with particular repertoires, technologies, and affective publics? McKenzie Wark (2014) sug-gests that the relationship between utopian and realist might be mutually constitutive rather than dialectical. He re-frames utopia as a realizable fragment or diagram that re-imagines relations. From this perspective, civic hacking gets traction not because they were ever intended to be the sole “solution” to a problem, but they are ways of acting and creating that are immediately apprehensible. Prototypes capture the imagination because they are shards of a possible future and can be created, modified, and argued about (Coleman, 2009).

Counter to a high-minded association of “liberal projects,” projects in hackerspaces resisted a final form. The action in hackerspace is more bricolage(Lévi Strauss, 1962, p. 18)than engineering. Projects in Geekspace arose spontaneously. Their inertia drew people to the space, bringing their tools and ideas that would then supplement the ideas of others. This churn is captured by how projects were seen as a success of the new space even though very few projects were actually finished.

Interactions through things, and perceptions about their potential, were ways to negotiate between seemingly conflicting imperatives of the individualism and communalism (A. L. Toombs, Bardzell, & Bardzell). Members would deliberately design activities that were incomplete to encourage a playful material improvisation. In these ways, the “material sensibilities” of members were particularly important. Similarly, reading a history of craft into software hacking, Lingel and Regan (2014) found that software hackers identified their work with craft as process, embodiment, and community. These sensitive readings of interactions with stuff seemed to more accurately capture the genre of hackerspaces, more so than action was guided by culture.

As I will discuss shortly, hackerspaces pull people in, and it is often only through shared engagement that they understand themselves as hackers and makers. Unpacking emic terms members use to describe this entanglement — project and do-ocracy — is the focus of this chapter.