CA21141 - Grassroots of Digital Europe: from Historic to Contemporary Cultures of Creative Computing (GRADE)

In a time when academics and citizens are increasingly concerned with surveillance capitalism, Europe takes on a leadership role in the global transformation towards a digital future that treats users fairly. It fosters initiatives such as the right to repair, pushes privacy and security policies such as the GDPR, and highlights citizens’ digital rights. These developments have their historical precedents in the 1980s and 1990s, when enthusiasts across Europe started to take part in grassroots culture of creative computing, or the participatory use of computers for experimentation, self-expression, or activism. Besides laying the groundwork for commercial successes, these communities created important specimens of digital cultural heritage (e.g. the demoscene or seminal computer games) and universally adopted technical solutions (e.g. the Linux operating system). To successfully implement the values of participation, social inclusion, and bottom-up innovation in today’s technology policy, we need to understand these historical developments. However, the historical knowledge about creative computing in Europe has so far been fragmented and lacking in transnational and interdisciplinary dialogue. GRADE aims to build a robust and diverse network of researchers from across Europe who will integrate the existing knowledge and work on new transnational projects. Within its working groups, the Action will focus on investigating user communities, their interaction with state and European-level policies, and the preservation of digital cultural heritage. Together, GRADE will contribute to a participatory technological agenda for Europe that is informed by historical research and sensitive to the cultural contexts of the various regions of Europe.