With a melange of art, science and hacking, HackteriaLab 2013 is beginning today at NCBS. No, not the kind of computer hacking that comes first to our minds when we hear that word. A hacker is anyone who works on a particular system (be it mechanical, electrical or even biological - ever heard of body hacks?) to maximize its function. The hacking we're talking about is of the kind where artists, hackers, activists, designers and scientists at NCBS will come together to "develop a rich web resource for people interested in or developing projects that involve Do-It-Yourself (DIY) bioart, open source software and electronic experimentation." This could range from building DIY spectroscopes to converting USBs into video microscopes, as HackteriaLabs 2010 and 2011 have shown.

HackteriaLab 2013, the organizers say, expands on ideas and methodologies around BioArt, DIY biology, ArtScience and BioHacking, developed during the two previous versions. In this year's 12-day long HackteriaLab, NCBS is collaborating with the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology (SSADT). The workshop has two phases. The 'Research' phase will involve creating numerous DIY and Do-it-With-Others (DIWO) models and laboratories. Participants are encouraged to explore and develop these new models for knowledge sharing and collaboration building. In the 'Reflection' phase, that the organizers say will focus on "public dissemination and communication", there will be site visits, discussions and performances at various locations in Bangalore. The projects, ideas and prototypes developed during the workshops will be discussed with the wider public, keeping true to the spirit of 'hacking' which emphasizes open access to scientific information of all kinds.

"As a community platform, Hackteria tries to encourage the collaboration of scientists, hackers and artists to combine their experitise, write critical and theoretical reflections, share simple instructions to work with lifescience technologies and cooperate on the organization of workshops, festival and meetings," says the website, where you can access more details about the concept of Hackteria. Conceptualized in 2009, it is the brainchild of bioartist Andy Gracie, scientist and DIY biohacker Marc Dusseiller and artist-educator Yashas Shetty of the SSADT. Shetty and his teams at the SSADT have been interacting with NCBS and principal investigator Mukund Thattai for the past few years for the ArtScienceBLR project (which aims at "creating spaces of dialogue and interaction between artists, designers and scientists") and the famed iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machines) competition at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at Cambridge (read our article on this here).

One feature that distinguishes HackteriaLab from other workshops is that anyone can attend it. The organizers say they will be more than happy to see you engage with activities at the workshop. Thattai says that it will be "fantastic to have a group of people with art and design backgrounds on the NCBS campus for an extended period. Scientific research focuses on what is informative or useful, but a hacker is limited only by what is possible. Let's see what comes out in two weeks." HackteriaLab 2013 wraps up on 12^th February - so be sure to drop by their workshop at the Teaching Lab sometime soon - to engage in hacking of a different kind.