Luis Felipe R. Murillo, an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and a Faculty Fellow at the Notre Dame Technology Ethics Center, dives into the world of hackerspaces and alternative technological futures. He discusses how these collective spaces challenge corporate tech dominance through community-driven projects. Murillo highlights fascinating examples, such as DIY radiation monitors and open hardware initiatives. He also explores the complexities of diversity and access within hacker communities, emphasizing their role in shaping equitable technological landscapes.
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insights INSIGHT
Common Circuits Connect Local Labs
Common circuits are transnational flows of people, projects, and symbols that enable local hacker communities to do political and technical work.
These circuits link sites like San Francisco, Tokyo, and Shenzhen to sustain alternative technology projects.
insights INSIGHT
What Hackerspaces Actually Are
Hackerspaces are community labs where people teach themselves and others about information technology.
They host workshops, art, and political projects that invite public participation.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Noisebridge's TOR Contribution
Noisebridge in San Francisco combined anarchist politics with technical work and ran strong TOR services.
The community volunteered to host major anonymity infrastructure to protect users from mass surveillance.
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A digital world in relentless movement—from artificial intelligence to ubiquitous computing—has been captured and reinvented as a monoculture by Silicon Valley "big tech" and venture capital firms. Yet very little is discussed in the public sphere about existing alternatives. Based on long-term field research across San Francisco, Tokyo, and Shenzhen, Common Circuits: Hacking Alternative Technological Futures (Stanford UP, 2025) explores a transnational network of hacker spaces that stand as potent, but often invisible, alternatives to the dominant technology industry. In what ways have hackers challenged corporate projects of digital development? How do hacker collectives prefigure more just technological futures through community projects? Luis Felipe R. Murillo responds to these urgent questions with an analysis of the hard challenges of collaborative, autonomous community-making through technical objects conceived by hackers as convivial, shared technologies.
Through rich explorations of hacker space histories and biographical sketches of hackers who participate in them, Murillo describes the social and technical conditions that allowed for the creation of community projects such as anonymity and privacy networks to counter mass surveillance; community-made monitoring devices to measure radioactive contamination; and small-scale open hardware fabrication for the purposes of technological autonomy. Murillo shows how hacker collectives point us toward brighter technological futures—a renewal of the "digital commons"—where computing projects are constantly being repurposed for the common good.
Mentioned in this episode:
"Political Software: Mapping Digital Worlds from Below" Project Website here
Luis Felipe R. Murillo is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Faculty Fellow at the Notre Dame Technology Ethics Center at the University of Notre Dame. His work is dedicated to the study of computing from an anthropological perspective.
Liliana Gil is Assistant Professor of Comparative Studies (STS) at The Ohio State University.
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