Exploring “Hacking,” Digital Public Art, and Implication for Contemporary Governance

Conceptual Background: The “Hacking” Folklore

In tracing the etymology of ‘hacking’, folklore rather than the history of the concept should be prioritised. This is because there are many narratives to explain the emergence of the concept and its incorporation into contemporary public discourse (Devitt, 2001). History could be subjective, but mainly expected to be a precise and accurate record. Folklore, although rooted in historical narrative and passed down across generations, is not expected to carry the kind of accuracy as history should. This is because its mainly verbal form of transmission and its inherent performance element makes folklore vulnerable to variability and manipulation (Khan, 2009). A word of caution though! History could be handed down verbally too, and like folklore could be accurate, written down and passed through generations. Nonetheless, folklore is associated with traditional stories, gossip, myths and legends, all of which are traditional art forms that are characterised by dubiety, as might be the case with history. A look at the many romanticised accounts of the origin of 'hacking', lends weight to prioritising the folklore around the origin of the concept over historical accounts.