Retrospective: Art Hack Day Lethal Software

Back in December 2012, Art Hack Day took place at the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts (GAFFTA). Participants gathered in a space overlooking one of the busiest and highly trafficked streets in San Francisco to work tirelessly for 48 hours to create projects based on the theme of 'lethal software'. As I stepped into the work area to catch the hacking in real time, I recall faces concentrating and looking intensely at brightly lit laptop screens. I even passed by some participants and saw lines of code cascading down as reflections on glasses. While a daunting task to create around a theme associated to death and morbidity, the myriad of ways to approach showcased the immense creativity and innovation of the makers. The projects forced the participants to look figuratively and literally at the notion that software and technology can be used as a medium to interpret ways we understand loss, violence, surveillance, decay, and death.