Psychedelic Chips
Sofia Burchardi & Plamen Bontchev
3.5.2014 - 24.5.2014
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Opening: Friday, May 2, 17-20
“Ready or not, computers are coming to the people. That’s good news, maybe the best since psychedelics.”
Stewart Brand, 1972
In the outskirts of the Global Village, in rural Nepal where connectivity is unstable and the digital divide is at its broadest, groups of self-organized activists work to extend the networks and provide the communities with Internet access.
By hacking together available equipment and installing access points, dish antennas and solar powered generators in trees and radio towers, these cyberpunks direct wireless signals from village to village through the Himalayas. With a pragmatic approach and working with second-hand hardware and modified off-the-shelf products they bring essential services like telemedicine, news bulletins and education closer to the locals.
They share a spiritual connection with earlier movements in the 1960s counter culture, phreakers and cyberpunks, as they work to bring information technology into everyday life while embracing self-sustainability and DIY-culture. Similarly to the early computer pioneers, they strive for personal and societal development through the virtues of computing.
Hiding behind motorcycle helmets, not online pseudonyms or avatars, their field of work is in hardware and infrastructure. They are the engineers and technicians of the real world, erecting the scaffolding for the virtual.
Sofia Burchardi, Plamen Bontchev, Toves, Copenhagen