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 * Instances and Case Studies of Critical Making-** This panel presents various attempts at critical making with various success rates at different stages of implementation. The aim of this panel is to illustrate the breadth of work that can be accomplished through the critical making methodology.

**Critical Commotion: Wireless Networking for Alternative Media and Community Organization** In the Fall of 2012 I began working with the Sanctuary for Independent Media to erect a free Wi-Fi network in North Central Troy, New York. We chose the Open Technology Institute’s Commotion Wireless software to power the network because it offered the ability to combine multiple wired connections into one large mesh wireless network using open standards and free software. The project has three goals: 1) offer free Wi-Fi for an entire block, 2) provide a distribution platform for The Sanctuary’s existing media archive, and 3) serve platforms and applications for community decision-making and organization. This presentation is a debriefing from a series of critical making activities meant to design and configure the North Troy Community Wireless network (NTCW). Local activists, professionals, and citizens were brought together in a series of hands-on workshops designed to give non-social scientists an opportunity to better understand thee sociopolitical forces at play on the block and how information systems can create quality online public space. NTCW is an exercise in traversing and exploring multiple layers of recursive depth (Eglash and Banks Forthcoming) and raising awareness of the need to treat technology as a “matter of concern” (Ratto 2011; Latour 2008) rather than a simple “matter of fact.”

Eglash, Ron, and David A. Banks. Forthcoming. “Recursive Depth in Generative Spaces: Democratization in Three Dimensions of Technosocial Self-Organization.” //The Information Society// Latour, Bruno. 2008. “A Cautious Prometheus? A Few Steps Toward a Philosophy of Design (with Special Attention to Peter Sloterdijk.” In, 2–10. Ratto, M. 2011. “Critical Making: Conceptual and Material Studies in Technology and Social Life.” //The Information Society// 27 (4): 252–260.


 * Rethinking the Academy: New Approaches to Knowledge Work Organization-** It can be argued that the academy has changed more in the last 20 years than it did in the last preceding hundred years. This panels looks at what may have caused the change, who stands to benefit, and what new institutions can and will arise.

**Emerging Opportunities: Praxis-Based Research Methods and Project-Based Learning for all Ages** The literature on “Mode 2” university research or Triple Helix collaboration between universities, government, and private industry make two large oversights. First, for all the talk about breaking down barriers and labs becoming more agile, the literature is largely concerned with big actors and very hierarchical bureaucracies. There is little discussion of partnering with civic society organizations or departments making long-term commitments with the variety of independent media centers, alternative bike shops, and community gardens that have cropped up over the years. This presentation is aims to bridge the DIY-maker culture literature and the work being done on public understanding and engagement with science. I intend to “triangulate” across three very different case studies: a community mesh Wi-Fi network, an outdoor amphitheater made from found objects, and a condom vending machine made for and by the developing world, in order to better understand what kinds of projects require what kinds of institutional support. In other words, if one were to build a 21st century research department from scratch, what would it look like? Who would be in it, and what kinds of work would be done? How is work evaluated and what do deliverables look like? All of these questions have partial answers but when put together, amount to a very compelling way forward.


 * Anarchist Technoscience: Appropriation, Self-Organization, Direct Action.**- There is widespread agreement that regardless of how one identifies as an anarchist (i.e. anarcho-communist, social ecologist, primitivist) one must seriously consider the role of technology in human society. Not just what it lets individuals accomplish, but what kind of human relations it frames and what kind of society it encourages or presupposes. This panel is devoted to any and all perspectives relating to technology and the better worlds we know are possible.

**Building Redundant Systems: Various Technologies of Community, Privacy, and Public Space** In the postscript of his latest book, Alexander Galloway urges the reader to “think of media not so much as objects but as principles of mediation… the computer should be understood as an ethic of practice… a recipe for moving procedurally towards a certain state of affairs. (P. 120)” Indeed, a great deal of leftist and explicitly “luddite” literature, take up a similar perspective. From urban planners like Ebenezer Howard and Colin Ward, to more general writers and thinkers such as Jacques Ellul, Langdon Winner and Lewis Mumford, technology is seen as much more than means to ends or passive entities. Technology has politics and it mediates social relations. The question for the leftist academic then becomes: what kinds of technologies foster and promote social justice and liberty? This presentation considers three case studies, a community mesh Wi-Fi network, an outdoor amphitheater made from found objects, and a condom vending machine made for and by the developing world, not as ideal types or sure answers, but as guide posts to possible new directions for sustained activism and building alternative social arrangements. Through participatory and collaborative making the researcher attempts to develop new technologies and methods for horizontally organized groups seeking to remediate structural social problems and/or build the capacity for human flourishing.