Many of us have memories, now reduced to nostalgic reminiscence, of the first time we persuaded our family’s Sinclair ZX Spectrum to move a glowing green pixel a centimetre or two to the left. At this moment we experienced the magic of programmed motion. Too quickly these early machines disappeared into obsolescence and the desire for faster and more became the dominant feature of human computer relationships, as we succumbed to the lure of the next techno-gadget. In the early twenty-first century it is essential to think about the technological footprints we are leaving in our wake as we continuously upgrade, discard and move on. In the geekosystem, Adam Hyde, Julian Priest and David Merritt forced a reconsideration of these one-way economics of techno-development. Socially, economically, and environmentally they gave us pause to reconsider—not simply possibilities for reuse and recycling but the very physical and emotional engagements that we have with these technologies.
Adam Hyde is a New Zealand born, Amsterdam-based artist, educator, tactical media practitioner, streaming media consultant and sometime curator. Julian Priest is an independent artist and researcher based in Wanganui, New Zealand. He was co-founder of Consume.net, one of the first wireless FreeNetwork communities, and his work has developed from network activism into spectrum policy engagement, wireless development work and media art practice. Together with David Merritt (a stalwart of the networked art scene in New Zealand, and the author of Internet: a New Zealand Users Guide, 1995), Hyde and Priest created a relational space that not only introduced new audiences to digital technologies but used these materials to question the role of galleries (and art) within today’s networked culture.
The geekosystem operated through a