The green grass of the campus accommodated more than three thousand hackers during the international hackers conference HAL2001. The number not only exceeded the expectations of the organisation, it is also a new record for an open-air hackers conference (compare: HIP '97, the last conference, counted 1500 hackers). The campus was literally bulging with dome tents, brought by the participants themselves.
Public Relations officer Sjoera Nas is somewhat surprised about the interest from the international media. "There are about two- to three-hundred members of the press present, from all over. From Germany, France, Russia, America, even from the Lebanon reporters and film crews have come. A number of daily newspapers, films and web magazines are filled with the event."
Striking is the event's easy-going, pleasant atmosphere. There are lots of meetings, people talk, laugh, and make new contacts. "To meet someone and talk face to face is something else from chatting on-line." Nas says. "That is also why HAL2001 was organised: that someone from America can exchange knowledge with a French person whom he never would have met otherwise."
In the centre of all the tents there is a large white tent, the spider in the web: here are dozens, if not hundreds of computers connected to the internet and to each other. Jon Callas, a man with a red goatee, sits in the tent behind a laptop. Via the internet he is following a lecture given at the same time in the Vrijhof. The image is rather jerky "but that doesn't matter. The audio is the important thing and is very good." He is from San Francisco and will stay for a European holiday after the conference.
A bit further along sits Remi Cellier from France. "I'm gonna check my mail first", the French man says. "And of course meet some people, hear the speeches".
The numerous other hackers in the tent make clear that a hacker is of a certain type, roughly put to be recognised by the number of cola cans next to the keyboard or his noticeable appearance: dyed or long hair, bushy-haired chins and jaws, t-shirts with text, often dark clothing.
A sociology student from England confirms that hackers are a sub-culture in society. "Hackers want to be unique and different. They question everything, they want to try impossible things." The originally Taiwanese Yuwei Lin is doing research at the conference into the 'hybrid socio-technical status of hackers in ICT innovation systems" or, what influence do hackers have on innovative developments. To that end she is interviewing a number of hackers. She concludes that the hackers' culture in society is becoming more important. You can see that, for example, in the huge turn-out andinterest. Lin also notices how nice people are to each other. "Many people know each other from HIP '97", is her explanation.
When the sun is finally shining on Saturday afternoon, the computers leave the tents. One step outside. "He's got six places free", someone calls. "All right", a man with a long braid in his grey hair answers and picks up his briefcase with the laptop. A moment later he plugs in and "Okay, I am online", he calls again. And then his striking golden sun glasses are exchanged for reading glasses.
An interesting tent is the PowerPong. Pong is the name of the second computer game ever and is a kind of ping pong: two discs moving up and down on each side of the screen that have to pass each other the ball. Designer Mathilde from Amsterdam had the idea to connect it to a bicycle. The harder you pedal the faster the ball goes. PowerPong therefore. A dynamo is used to generate power. Mathilde: "I wanted to do something with alternative power. On this event so much power is used via large generators that I wanted to show with this game how you could do it differently. And you move for a while, not bad for hackers once in a while."
