[nettime-see] Decline and fall of Kiberpipa

[Luka PrinÄiÄ / Nova deViator <nova@deviator.si>]

here's a subjective though quite thoughtful view on recent happenings
around Ljubljana's hackerspace and media-art lab Kiberpipa.
these days, Kiberpipa is closed, and unofficial sources say, that the
community has decided to take Kiberpipa with them someplace else while
Zavod K6/4 (and ÅOU Ljubljana - student organisation of university of
Ljubljana) are asking any interested parties for continuation of the
"inter-media" ( = new media in slovene birocrat-speak) program as a K6/4
multimedia centre.

https://www.kiberpipa.org/



Decline and fall of Kiberpipa 
=============================
08.06.2013 by TomaÅ Åolc, via
http://www.tablix.org/~avian/blog/archives/2013/06/decline_and_fall_of_kiberpipa/


I guess by this time it's a well known fact around here that
Ljubljana's hackerspace Kiberpipa has come to the end of its days, at
least in its current place and form. A farewell party has been held,
good byes have been said and all it remains now is to start unplugging
the server rack.

If you haven't been following the news, the simple story is that
Kiberpipa's parent organization twice removed decided to convert the
place into a restaurant. Destruction of a hackerspace is merely a
collateral damage in a grand scheme of converting an old building full
of non-profit student and art organizations into a very for-profit
hotel in a sweet spot near the center of the city. As it's usual in
such cases there's also a back story that involves removing opposition
through legalistic procedures and suspicions of personal interests. It
was all done under cover and the community found this out only after
the contracts have been signed through rumors, hearsay and digging
through meeting minutes. An official statement has only been made when
media started asking questions even though Kiberpipa had a
representative that should be kept up to date with such things.


I'm not and never was involved in the internal politics of Kiberpipa's
tenuous relationship with its masters. For me, Kiberpipa was foremost a
place to go to after lectures and later after work where I could meet
the kind of people that enjoyed idly chatting about technology and
various other geeky topics instead of sports events and daily politics.
As I was involved in Kiberpipa from the start I did use to have daily
responsibilities there, like administration of servers and taking care
of network security. Kiberpipa was also the place of my attempt at
running a serious free software project . Many hours were spent at
weird hours in a cramped server room and I learned a lot from these
jobs, but unlike other hackerspaces, Kiberpipa's attractiveness was
rarely about having access to equipment that I wouldn't have otherwise.
It was foremost the social aspect that kept me returning to the place.
I found many valuable personal connections that later led me to start
ups and other interesting volunteering work .

That said, Kiberpipa never felt like a tightly knit community. People
that frequented the place or used its name on projects were always
divided into groups that did not communicate well with each other.
Contrary to most other hackerspaces, Kiberpipa was from the start tied
to a relatively large non-profit that ran several other, mostly
artistic operations, under control of the Student organization of the
University of Ljubljana . For majority of my time in Kiberpipa they
were kind of a fuzzy entity that only showed itself only when it
exercised its power over some official aspect of the organization or
left the place in ruin after an unannounced party. Ties between the
more technical hacker crowd and arts communities were rarely relaxed.
Often there was an unusual reversal of roles where artists were the
ones supplying money through various public grants and technical people
perceived as moochers playing with their toys. In its early days there
was also a strong political activism side to Kiberpipa with which I
didn't particularly identify myself either.


When a rare project that involved collaboration happened, it was often
setup and discussed outside of general channels like the member's
mailing list. It's not surprising then that in all years of its
existence and numerous formal and less formal meetings and discussions
it was never possible to come up with a mission statement or give an
answer what Kiberpipa was that everyone would agree with.

Even with hindsight it's hard to say what could have been done
differently. It's doubtful that Kiberpipa would be this successful
without its partnership with the student organization that ultimately
led to its destruction. It provided an accessible, rent-free place and
connections to government subsidies that removed the need for
membership fees. With them the place would certainly attract a lot less
people. Kiberpipa's community also showed a lot of flexibility,
changing over the years its external face from mostly being a free
cybercafà to a place to go to for lectures and workshops about various
topics. Part of this probably comes from the fact that the community
never learned how to transfer knowledge between generations, but still
it's impressive enough that comments can be heard from old members that
they never though the place would survive for 13 years.


Although I mostly kept myself in the background and had my share of
conflicts and grief there, Kiberpipa has been a big part of my life and
I'm sad to see it end like this. Things may not be as bad as they look
though. The latest generation of Kiberpipa's members are looking for
ways of continuing the story in an independent fashion and although I'm
not actively involved in that effort I hear that the outlook is good.
I'm usually too pessimistic in such writings anyway . For better or
worse I am quite certain though that Kiberpipa 2.0 will be quite
different from the dark and smelly open source cellar we started 13
years ago.





-- 
Luka PrinÄiÄ / Nova deViator 
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