#DroneHackademy is a temporary hacktivist school, citizen science laboratory and critical theory platform for the use and discussion of unmanned aerial vehicles as a social technology.
The participants are chosen through a public anouncement with the objective of bringing together people of different backgrounds and knowledge fields: filmmakers, mediactivists, artists, architects, researchers, geographers, biologists, hackers, software developers, etc. We practise positive discrimination welcoming people from low income classes, limited access to technology and also those how represent activist groups. #Dronehackademy aims to create a community of learning, “situated knowledge” exchanges and action.
#DroneHackademy lasts for a week combining theory and practical application. Participants learn both how to build unmanned aerial vehicles and how and why to protect themselves and their communities against them. The final activity consists in the realization of a operation where drones are employed in a socially beneficial function. The objective of #DroneHackademy is therefore to provide this technology to those places and situations where its use is ethically justified in order to counterpower social/spatial/environmental injustice. #Dronehackademy collaborates with these communities and territories contributing the capacity of action in the airspace.
The first #DroneHackademy took place in June 2015 in Rio de Janeiro with ten participants aged between 19 and 49. Two open source UAVS were built, a FLONE with cell phone control and a FLONE with arducopter control. The “situated” operation consisted of an aerial mapping of Vila Autodromo, the local community resisting eviction from the real state project conceived at the site of the Olympic Park in Barra da Tijuca. It had the support of the MediaLab_UFRJ and LAVITS (Latino-American Network of Surveillance, Technology and Society).
#Dronehackademy is a collaboration between computer engineer & artist Lot Amorós and architect & researcher Pablo de Soto.
Lot Amorós es ingeniero informático y artista multidisciplinar creador de FLONE. Lot Amorós é engenheiro da computação e artista multidisciplinar. O seu trabalho está diretamente relacionado com as novas tecnologias, buscando refletir sobre como estas podem se tornar ferramentas inovadoras na compreensão de conflitos sociais, tais como as guerras no Oriente Médio, os fluxos migratórios, ou ainda contextos críticos que envolvam comunidades excluídas. Em suas ações “artivistas”, Amorós tem desenvolvido tecnologia em drones, como no projeto “Dronecoria”, no qual um veículo aéreo não tripulado dissemina sementes na floresta. Seu trabalho tem formado parte das mostras Disobedient Objects no Victoria and Albert Museum de Londres e Llega un grito a través del ciclo. Drones, vigilancia de masas y guerras invisibles en LABoral Centro de Arte de Gijón. É também autor do site de noticias hacked_freedom.
Pablo de Soto is an architect, artist and researcher, working at the intersection of many fields and disciplines from architecture and new media to social and enviromental sciences. His practice-led research uses new technologies, radical cartography and critical epistemologies to approach urban & geopolitical conflicts in collaboration with other practitioners and the social movements. He won the LAB_JovenExperimenta and LAB_cyberspaces Award by LABral Art Center and the Elinor Ostrom Award by Buenos Aires University. He was artist in residence at Townhouse Gallery Cairo and Tokyo Wonder Site.In the 2000s he was cofounder of hackitectura.net, a pioneer group of architects, artists, computer specialists and activists. He holds a Master Degree in Architecture from the Royal Institute of Technology of Stockholm and a PhD in Communication & Culture from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.
