︎Biography
Short bio: Greetings! I’m Kit Braybrooke, a postdigital anthropologist and designer working globally to explore how systems make worlds. With 15 years expertise in applying feral digital methods in the field, my work asks how technological innovation can invite more-than-human networks (animal, vegetal, machine, and algorithmic) to walk together across new terrains. I especially like to publish research on the power dynamics and possibilities of regenerative practices - including feral and transfeminist technologies; hacker and maker cultures; museums and other public spaces; and experimental platforms like living labs, commons, temporary autonomous zones and circular economies.
A bit more: I am currently Professor and Head of the new MA Transversal Design at Institute of Experimental Design and Media Cultures (IXDM), HGK Basel Academy of Art and Design, FHNW University of Applied Sciences & Arts Northwestern Switzerland (arrival August 2024). I also direct the critical design studio We&Us, which since 2020 has explored community co-creation for systems change across Europe, China and North America. I serve on advisory boards for Art Tech Nature Culture & New Forms Media Society, and am a founding member of Digital Commons Policy Council. I have taught at Royal College of Art, King’s College London and Tongji University, and my work has been featured in places like TATE Modern, Arafura Mexico, Uroboros Fest Prague, Portland Art Gallery, RTVE Spain, BBC News, Guardian, DAZED & Furtherfield. I hold a PhD in Media & Cultural Studies, University of Sussex and a MSc Digital Anthropology, University College London. I’m also a street artist, a gatherer of sounds, a long-distance cyclist, and a friend to all the world’s dogs.
︎ Contact
Let’s work together ~ feel invited to get in touch with your wildest ideas.
In the meantime, stay in touch via my Substack newsletter Wild Thickets, which sends polyphonic postcards from rewilding once a season.
These days, my studio time is typically split between Basel, Berlin, London and a spaceship in cyberspace. ︎
︎ Exhibitions & residencies
2024 [exhibited work]: Open Studio: Kunsttage Basel, Atelier Mondial, Basel, Switzerland.
2024 [exhibited work]: Gentle Dismantlings, ALL POWER ON EARTH COMES FROM THE SUN, Solarpunk Surf Club, Lexington, KY.
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
Oct 2024: Servers, spores & seeds [panel chair], MESH Festival, Basel.
2023: ‘Teaching the algorithm to feed us’ [panel], Hack the Promise Festival.
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.
2023: ‘Rewilding the machine: Technologies for inclusion in feminist, decolonial & more-than-human worlds’ [lecture], SIAT - School of Interactive Arts & Technology, SFU.
2023: ‘An experimental exchange of ideas between journalists and socially-engaged artists’ [panel], Mozilla Festival.
2023: ‘Growing interdisciplinary virtual communities’ [panel], Beyond the Now, Berlin.
2022: ‘Climate stories and digital design’ [panel chair], 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.