Circuit bending and hardware hacking as artistic practices in the context of the aesthetics of obsolescence and DIY and bricoleur activism

The article discusses how a number of artistic strategies have emerged around the aesthetics of obsolescence and the use and manipulation of electronic devices that define a specific field that questions the role of technology in today’s culture. Using the texts of Canadian artist and activist Garnet Hertz as a thread, it is studied how these strategies are developed in the context of the collaborative movements associated with do it yourself (DIY) and bricoleur activism and the artistic practices we identify as circuit bending and hardware hacking, that will be analysed here focusing on the work of artists Reed Ghazala, Nicolas Collins, Jon Satrom and Benjamin Gaulon, and associated disclosure resources. In this scenario, the bricoleur artist claims a technological culture inscribed in the materiality of the devices and the speculative possibilities of their critical manipulation.