ABSTRACT
Hackerspaces, citizen labs, and makerspaces explore unexpected uses of prototypes in community building, which offers an alternative to algorithmic rule and automation. In these spaces, prototypes serve as a form of public deliberation and creative engagements with technology and science that includes philosophical inquiry and aesthetic and artistic explorations. To prevent disruptive prototypes from overtaking the future and reducing governance to automation, we use these examples as models of how to use prototypes for governance. These spaces enable engagement and decision-making about future infrastructure and community. In that sense, they provide a model of experimental governance later described as exploratory sandboxes for testing different futures through prototyping.
