Biography
︎ Dr Kit Braybrooke is a transmedia designer & researcher who explores how systems make worlds. They have 15 years experience in combining anthropology, design and feminist technoscience to invite more-than-human networks (animal, vegetal, machine, algorithmic) to walk together across new terrains. They work especially at the urban scale with spaces of sociotechnical innovation - from commons, living labs and circular economies to makerspaces, open source cultures and temporary autonomous zones.
Kit is currently director of the critical design studio We&Us, which since 2020 has explored co-creation for systems change in Europe, China & Canada. They serve on advisory boards for Art Tech Nature Culture and New Forms Media Society, and are a founding member of Digital Commons Policy Council. They have taught at Royal College of Art, King’s College London and Tongji University, and their work has been featured globally in places like Tate Modern, Arafura Mexico, Uroboros Festival Prague, Portland Art Gallery, RTVE Spain, BBC News, Guardian, DAZED, Furtherfield & Rabble.
They hold a PhD in Media & Cultural Studies, University of Sussex for ‘Hacking the Museum’, an applied ethnographic study of user experiences and power dynamics at public spaces for digital making in London-based museums with partners Tate Britain, Wellcome Collection & British Museum, and a MSc Digital Anthropology, University College London for ‘She-hackers’, a digital ethnographic study of gender politics in EU hacker cultures.
Contact
Kit is currently open to consulting in these areas:
Service design
Systems design
Graphic design
User research
Guest lecturing
Digital ethnography
These days, they can often be found working with Hey Neighbour Collective at the Simon Fraser University Centre for Dialogue.
Their studio time is typically split between ‘Vancouver’1, Berlin, London, and a spaceship in cyberspace. ︎
1. Also known as the unceded and ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.
Exhibitions & residencies
2023 [exhibited work]: Mesosanctuary, ARAFURA, Mexico City.
2022 [exhibited work]: Mesosanctuary, 4S/ECOSITE, Cholula, Mexico.
2021: New Scholars [creative fellow], Bristol & Bath Creative Ecologies R&D, Watershed, Bristol.
2020-21: Steering Committee [co-founder & chair], Art/ Tech/ Nature/ Culture.
2019-current: Care-full Design Lab [extended member], School of Design, RMIT, Melbourne.
2018, 2019: Living Research [delegate, making x circularity], British Council, Chengdu & Xi’an, China.
2015-19: Collaborative Doctoral Partnership [research residency], Digital Studio, TATE, London.
2018: Shùjùxiàn [exhibited work], Artists of the Open Web Exhibit, Mozfest, London.
2017: Space/Gather/Make [curator], Art:Work, Tate Modern, TATE, London.
2017: Haunted Random Forest Festival [curator], University of Sussex Digital Humanities Lab, UK.
2017: Machine Ghosts [exhibited work], Lighthouse Arts, Brighton.
2017: Parallel Universes [design research residency], Future Makers Series, British Museum, London.
2016: Spacehacker [exhibited work], MozEx Digital Arts, TATE + V&A, London.
2014: Art & Culture & Web [track curator], Mozilla Festival, London.
2013: Build & Teach the Web [track curator], Mozilla Festival, London.
2012: Open Knowledge Festival [co-founder and curator], Aalto University Media Factory, Helsinki.
2011: Open Government Data Camp [curator], Centrum Cyfrowe, Warsaw.
Talks
Sept 2023: ‘Teaching the algorithm to feed us’ [panel], Hack the Promise Festival, Basel.
Sept 2023: ‘The anatomy of a commoning-based predictive infrastructure’ [workshop], Critical Media Lab, IXDM - Institute of Experimental Design & Media Cultures, Basel Academy of Art & Design, FHNW.
Jun 2023: ‘Rewilding the machine: Technologies for inclusion in feminist, decolonial & more-than-human worlds’ [lecture], SIAT - School of Interactive Arts & Technology, SFU.
Mar 2023: ‘An experimental exchange of ideas between journalists and socially-engaged artists’ [panel], Mozilla Festival.
Jan 2023: ‘Growing interdisciplinary virtual communities’ [panel], Beyond the Now, Berlin.
2022: ‘Climate stories and digital design’ [panel chair], 2022, Digital Design Week, Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A), London, UK.
2022: ‘Anticipating change: From climate collapse to eco-social futures’ [panel], CreaTures Festival, ES.
2022: ‘Creative participatory methods in urban social research’ [guest lecture], Department of Sociology, Tongji University, Shanghai, China.
2022: ‘Digital cultures for regeneration? Mutual aid and resistance in the Anthropocene’ [guest lecture], Mutual Affinities, Creative Scotland.
2022: ‘Undisciplined knowledge? Intervening in the climate crisis for trans/disciplinary regeneration’ [public lecture], University College London (UCL).
2021: ‘Digital spaces of resistance: Community histories of open source & the commons’ [guest lecture] Create Ireland x We/Us Digital Clinic.
2021: ‘Rethink the system, together: Makers and the circular economy in China’ [talk], Making Futures, Plymouth College of Art, UK.
2021: ‘New coalitions in socially engaged digital practice’ [panel], Mozilla Festival.
2021: ‘Museums in a virtual age’ [panel], Faculty of Arts & Humanities, University College London, UK.
2020: ‘Arts practice otherwise’ [guest lecture], Crisis//Critical Education, ArtEZ University of Arts, Arnhem, NL.
2020: ‘Libraries & museums: Third spaces of?’ [panel], Neue Kulturgeographien, Bonn, Germany.
2019: ‘Hacking the museum? Space and power at London cultural institutions’[public lecture], Department of Digital Humanities, King’s College London, UK.
2019: ‘Maker cultures of the commons’ [talk], STEAMhouse Talks, Birmingham, UK.
2019: ‘Future perspectives: Making in 2030’ [talk], Sustainable Innovation, London, UK.
2018: ‘Makers - and museums - as a market’ [panel], Making It Conference, Liverpool, UK.
2018:’Temporary shared machines: An open discussion with the Tate, hacked’ [talk], Electronic Visualisation & Arts (EVA), London, UK.
2018: ‘那些创造世界的人 | Make the world’ [panel], 中英创客生态分享会 Maker Exchange, ALLAB, Chengdu, China.
2017: ‘Power geometries in museums’ [panel], Location & networked creativity in gamer, hacker and maker publics, AoIR (Association of Internet Researchers), Tartu, Estonia.
2016: ‘Who’s the digital revolution for?’ [panel], Brighton Digital Festival, UK.
2016: ‘Hacking the museum?’ [panel], Digital fabrications of hackers, makers and manufacturers: whose 'industrial revolution'? 4S/EASST, Barcelona.
2016: ‘Speculative making: Possible futures’, Maker Assembly, Belfast.
2016: ‘Technologies and performative play: Re-creation and subversion of institutionalised cultures’ [panel], Forgotten genealogies of art, technology and science, Society for the History of Technology, National University of Singapore, SG.
2016: ‘From making to criticality and back again: Two makerspace futures’ [talk], Maker Assembly, Farest Labs Hackspace, Belfast, IR.
2013: ‘La Aventura de sabar: LibreGraphics and open design globally’ [interview], RTVE News.
2013: ‘Seven faces of open design’ [keynote], LibreGraphics, Madrid, SP.
2012: ‘Get more women on board: Tech, activism & gender [panel], Campus Party EU, Berlin, DE.
2012: ‘Hacking open data for creativity’ [talk], Re:publica Konference, Berlin.
2012:‘Free city, open source’ [talk], Pixelache, Tallinn, Estonia.
2011: ‘Making the difference: Lady hackers’ [interview], BBC Radio, UK.
2011: ‘She-hackers: Gender in F/LOSS’ [talk], Chaos Communication Camp, Germany, DE.
Research & teaching
2021-22: Senior Researcher, Urban Rural Assembly, Dept of International Urbanism & Design, Habitat Universität, Berlin.
2020-21: Research Fellow, CreaTures, Dept of Engineering & Design, University of Sussex.
2020-21: Digital Anthropologist, Accessing Culture in Isolation, King’s College London & Keio University Tokyo.
2020-21: Visiting Researcher, Dept of Digital Humanities, King's College London.
2018-21: Editorial Board, Journal of Peer Production.
2020: Guest Lecturer, Cultural Diversity & Collaborative Practice Autumn School, Create Ireland, UK.
2019: Visiting Scholar, Institute for Transformations of Human-Environment Systems (IRI-THEsys), Humboldt-Universität, Berlin, DE.
2018, 2019: Visiting Lecturer, ‘Critical Making As’ series, Dept of Digital Humanities, King’s College London.
2019: Guest Lecturer, Geographisches Institut, Universität Bonn, Germany, DE.
2019: Guest Lecturer, Institut für Medienwissenschaft, Humboldt-Universität, Germany, DE.
2016-17: Visiting Lecturer & Co-convener, ‘Food + Code’ course, Design Products MA, Royal College of Art.
2016: Guest lecturer, University of the Arts London.
2016: Guest lecturer, Royal College of Art, London.
2015: Guest Lecturer, Dept of Anthropology, University of Victoria.
2014: Education Chair, Maker Foundation, Vancouver.