The Poetic Grammar of the Hack

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Photo courtesy of Caixa Forum.

This exhibition at the CaixaForum examines a fluid, post-crisis and post-pandemic terrain in which hacking represents new possibilities in the face of reality. Curated by Bárbara Cueto, the show is a part of the "Call for Curation" program.

Although hacking usually refers to infiltrating a computer environment, any domain of nature can introduce something virtual, something that has an apparent presence and not a real one. Therefore, everything can be hacked. A hack is a way of intervening in said nature and by revealing both its productive and its destructive powers.

In 1903, Guglielmo Marconi wanted to present to the London public the first message sent wirelessly. Before beginning, the receiving apparatus emitted a message in morse code that said “Rats! Rats! Rats!” followed by various insults towards the scientist and those present. The radio was not a private channel as Marconi had made it seem; wireless messages could be intercepted and interfered with. This short and intrusive snippet became the first "hack" in history.

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