Hackteria.org (Open Source Biological Art) initiative is an informal, open and experimental network supporting DIY (Do-It-Yourself) and open science practices across variety of contexts (artistic, academic, non-profit) and continents (EU, Asia, USA). Because of our emphasis on hybrid and experimental practices, which are often open ended, we do not use consensus as a necessary pre-requisite for action, but we emphasise documentation as a tool of reflection and deliberation, which help us evaluate our activities. The views discussed in this white paper do not represent the whole group, but our personal experiences with the workshops and events we organized over the years. We perceive the collaboration between science, engineering, arts and design for us as serving one main function: it increases and tests new models of public participation and engagement in science and technology and introduces a greater reflexiveness in the whole R&D and appropriation processes. Instead of communicating and disseminating results, on which scientists and policy makers eventually agree, we are interested in an experimental approach for policy deliberation, where all parties have an active role in the whole R&D process and where science is probed against many other fields and interests - social, aesthetic, political, philosophical, even culinary. It is our goal to simply bring closer science and all the facets of society by testing alternative and reflexive forms of R&D, which connect communities to prototype development and testing, and by negotiating variety of needs, fears, and hopes of different actors. We hope to bridge not only the divide between science and art but also between experts and amateurs and also citizens from different parts of the world by simply making scientific experiments accessible and by enabling research in developing countries (mainly India and Indonesia).

Read more at http://seadnetwork.wordpress.com/white-paper-abstracts/final-white-papers/position-statement-suggested-actions/