Inaugural Lecture by Prof. Dr. Kit Braybrooke: Feral Hacking as Polycrisis Alchemy 🏄🏼‍♀️, Basel Academy of Art and Design

Prof. Dr. Kit Braybrooke, Professor and Head of the Master’s programme Transversal Design at the Institute Experimental Design and Media Cultures (IXDM) of the HGK Basel, will give a public inaugural lecture entitled: “Transforming Systems Together: Feral Hacking as Polycrisis Alchemy 🏄🏼‍♀️” The lecture will take place on Tuesday, 14 April 2026 at 6:30 pm in Seminar Room D 1.03 at HGK Basel.

How can multispecies communities wield experimental material practices like hacking, making, jugaad and circularity to reshape technosocial systems in a time of polycrisis?

In their inaugural lecture, Dr Kit Braybrooke, Professor and Head of MA Transversal Design at the Institute Experimental Design and Media Cultures, will explore how feral hacking for systems change invites more-than-human communities on the frontlines of climate emergency - animal, vegetal, machine and algorithmic - to walk together across new terrains.

Digging into case studies from global fieldwork - including shanzai networks and circular economy villages in China, makerspaces within public museums in London, living labs and feminist hacktivists in Germany, sea gardens in Canada, and ancestral technologies in India - diverse community wisdoms will be woven into a polyphonic tale of regenerative futures.

By inviting hacker alchemy into unexpected environments, Kit argues, we have the ability to transform the power dynamics of hegemonic structures. This critical development of systems change for/with climate evokes the slow work of gentle dismantling - a dance with deep time, a slice of sandstone disintegrating in the rain, a winking ghost in the shell, a worlding of worlds. Together, these tactical interventions call for radical hope in troubled times.

Also invited as special guests are ‘Flying Organ 1 + 2’ from artist Susi Hinz’s installation Hydrababy I - hybrid forms emerging from disassembly and fabrication, incorporating dismantled Apple MacBooks and reflecting on the entanglement of technological and organic systems.

This is a public event, and all humans and their companion species are welcome. Attendees are invited to wear something with a bit of sparkle for the occasion. The lecture will be followed by a cosy apéro reception.