Hacklab

A hacklab (in Spanish: laboratorio hacker), also known as hackspace or hackerspace (in Spanish: hacker space), is a physical meeting place to meet, socialize and collaborate with people with interests in science, new technologies, digital or electronic arts, as well as topics close to or related to those just mentioned. Said site can be seen as an open community laboratory, as a space where people from diverse backgrounds can come together, thus making available to hobbyists and students of different levels, the infrastructure and environment necessary to develop and delve into their own technological projects.. The purpose of a hackspace is therefore to concentrate resources and knowledge to promote research and development in those topics just listed.

Activities

In a hacklab a cooperative organization and learning system is usually used, applying free software, due to the freedoms that are offered (self-learning and free knowledge). There is an important ideological component in the organization of hacklabs, while hackerspaces do not usually focus on militancy or activism, both are places to socialize, learn and experiment with technologies.

Hacklabs are characterized, compared to hackerspaces, by their nature of social criticism: a hacklab is a group of people who are critical of the ethical and social implications of technologies, especially information technology, which, in addition to study and analysis, carries out social dissemination and seeks to offer alternatives. For example, hacklabs by definition use and promote free software while it is not a condition of hackerspaces.

They also usually offer the following opportunities:

• Organization of technology courses (programming, electronics, and mechanical design at all levels).
• Possibilities of participation in the development of group projects.
• Space or place to investigate, debate, and disseminate, on Internet-related issues, new technologies, and freedoms and rights.
• Implementation of related social and exchange activities.

In 2022, the site hackerspaces.org, which compiles hackspaces, hacklabs and makerspaces, maintains a list of 856 active groups.

Typically the origin of hacklabs is located in Italy from the first Italian hackit hackmeeting in 1998, but it was in Barcelona where the first Spanish hacklab was created: Kernel Panic, from the first Spanish hackmeeting in 2000. Currently there are a dozen hacklabs and globally about twenty between hacklabs, hackerspaces and < i>makerspaces in Spain, and they continue to grow in number. Since the meeting held in Madrid in April 2006, called Interhacklabs Conference, new hacklabs began to appear in Latin American countries, as in the case of the Stgo Makerspace, Hacklab and Valpomedialab in Chile, Hackreta and Lowlab in Argentina, R00thouse (r00thouse i>) and Hacklab Sucre (acklab-Sucre) in Bolivia, as well as Mexico with Voltaje Hacklab (Qro) and HackLab Autónomo (formerly Z.A.M.),, and like Paraguay with Hacklabasu, and Colombia with HackLab Oriente.

Music

Music Hackspace (London), Music Hackspace Dublin, CPH Music Maker Space (Copenhagen), Ljudmila (Ljubljana), Radona (Zagreb). See Lowlab Burner Box experience (Rosario / Argentina)