Hackerspaces: The Beginning

Datengarten

The "Datengarten"

We – the Chaos Computer Club Bremen, Germany, that is – own a little place we like to call the Datengarten which roughly translates into datayard or datagarden. Well, on second thought we do not actually own it in the strictest sense, but we have certainly made it our own.

The Datengarten is an allotment with a house in a suburban area of Bremen, surrounded pretty much by other allotments, an out-of-business railroad track and untamed nature. The story of our hackerspace goes something like this: Once upon a time, in a dark, pre-broadband time there was a war. I'm sure you all learned about that in school, so there is really no need to dig into it any further. Anyway, after the war a lot of Bremen lay destroyed and many people didn't have anywhere to live so some of them just went and build houses on land that had previously been allotments. The problem, however, is that this happened without construction permits. You might wonder why that is a problem – well, remember this all takes place in the wonderful nation of Germany, where we hail bureaucracy and order. So after a while the city rather wanted to get rid of these unorderly squatters. Policy was to not kick people out of their houses but to wait until somewhere down the line whoever had inherited the house moved somewhere else, leaving the place empty and therefore eligible for demolition by the city. The same is supposed to happen to our lovely little house. However, in this case the rather dire financial situation of the town of Bremen plays to our advantage. The city doesn't know when they'll have the time and more importantly the money to tear down the place. This is why the owner and previous inhabitant has given it to us to do as we please until the bulldozers come a-rolling, for the symbolic rent of one whole euro per month (considering that won't even buy you a full liter of gas over here, that's pretty generous).

When we first visited the place it was rather run-down and, well, gross (let me just say this: the toilet floor was covered with a layer of carpet which was covered with several layers of...supposedly ten years worth of not cleaning). But soon a group of “volunteers” began to take care of the most pressing issues under the tight regiment of Sven, the Datengarten's daddy smurf. Being a bunch of nerds, it was generally perceived that the most urgent of all these issues was of course to provide internet access for the masses pilgrimaging to the Datengarten. Along the way we installed power and internet access, tidied up both yard and the inside of the house (to a reasonable level, we don't expect to impress the likes of Martha Stewart anytime soon) and especially formed a tight bond with the neighbors. Ok, to be frank we were off to a rather uneasy start due to the fact that these neighbors are mainly elderly people (the type that puts up lawn gnomes in their front yards) and we are mostly long haired nerdy creatures who drive their cars to fast past their allotments, light up furniture in our garden (but only that ONE time) and play loud music. Other than the contest of who pissed off the neighbors the most we had weekly barbecues in the summer months, painted posters for protest marches, stored retro hardware, had film soirées, ghost story readings and a celebration after the world didn't end back in October when CERN pressed that button. Mainly we just were our fabulous geeky selves, always having a full stock of Club Mate and Beck's beer in the fridge. As winter came, so did the chill and we moved our meetings inside the house.

To the day, the Datengarten remains a work in progress. But we really hope the city's financial management doesn't improve anytime soon and the Datengarten will therefore live to see a couple more summers.

Pictures

http://tim.cyb0rg.org/img/p1020249.klein.jpg http://tim.cyb0rg.org/img/p1020251.klein.jpg http://tim.cyb0rg.org/img/p1020253.klein.jpg http://tim.cyb0rg.org/img/p1020256.klein.jpg http://tim.cyb0rg.org/img/p1020259.klein.jpg http://tim.cyb0rg.org/img/p1020263.klein.jpg