[Nettime-fr] Open call to free the home router from its corporate shell!

(apologies for cross posting)

“Everybody should love their router!”

«Home is where your wifi connects automatically» claims a recent popular Internet meme. This reflects how wifi has become a basic part of our daily needs, like electricity, like running water. One can estimate the amount of wifi routers in the world by a few billions. Yet they (almost) all suffer from the same discrepancy: they are all boring.

“Boring?”, you might ask. “How can this gateway to the universe's information be boring?” So yes. While our home router caches our wildest fantasies, our innermost secrets, it sits in its corner, unnoticed, unglamourous.

Celebrating WIFI freedom!

Recently, the FCC has been considering a proposal to require manufacturers to lock down computing devices (routers, PCs, phones) to prevent modification, if they have a "modular wireless radio". This means that hardware and wifi freedom are being attacked. In response to these ridiculous measures, we are offering a playful DIY router pimping party. Let's celebrate our freedom of creative hacking!

No two routers are alike! What would your individual router look like?

Routers covered in pink and gold glitter? Routers dressed as Darth Vader? Routers disguised as sex-toys? Routers hiding behind anonymous’ Guy Fawkes mask?

We call all router-owners to reflect on the unique bond they have with their router. Re-design your router in a way to reflect its position in your life. See how other router owners imagine their router.

Send us images of your “pimped” up routers and get a place in the 12th edition of Athens Digital Arts Festival (ADAF)! In order to submit your router please post a picture of it on Facebook or Instagram with hashtags #ADAFyourRouter and #RouterPoP and send your submission to routerpop@gmail.com along with your name, age, location, model of the router, and a few words about your re-design if you like.

The 5 best pimped routers, selected by a jury, will be invited to be exhibited as part of the RouterPoP installation at ADAF2016.

How to submit:

A PDF with: your name, age, location, and model of the router.

Up to 300 words describing what your router means to you.

Up to 5 jpeg images of the redesigned router.

Submissions: routerpop@gmail.com

Deadline: 21 April 2016

The winners will be decided by 28 April 2016

*** Routers that will be no longer in use may be donated to Sarantaporo DIY wireless network upon their owners' request.

Jury:

Yoav Lifshitz, Tal Messing, missdata, artists (initiators of the project)

Regine Debatty, We Make Money Not Art

James Bridle, writer, artist, publisher, technologist

Ilias Chatzichristodoulou & Katerina Gkoutziouli, ADAF

http://2016.adaf.gr/