The purpose of the paper is to understand the creative forces in two particular and peculiar workshops at IT conferences, where participants come together to use DIY materials like yarn, fuse beads and defunct toys to experiment with alternative ways of conceptualising technology. Drawing on anarchist Hakim Bey’s notion of Temporary Autonomous Zone as well as on an understanding of knitting as a critical practice, the paper analyses the forces at play in those workshops and argues that the unlikely clash of technologies, materials, event and participants opens up for unique creative forces that allows participants to re-think the future of high-tech.
Translated title of the contribution
The tactics of insousiance: Yarn, IT and ephemeral anarchi