##The Cyber Surgeons Club in Argentina

On May 20, we were at El club del Cybercirujeo (spanish for “Cyber.-trashing Club”), a meeting/performance/showup at the Techeles Cultural Center, Alsina 1748, City of Buenos Aires, #Argentina.

Taking advantage of the participation of ~crazyjane and ~deadguy in the organization and ~arnica who was also present, we enjoyed the arrival of ~ffuentes from Chile to Argentina. The event found us ~peron, ~jota and ~thaiel in forms that can be described as pseudophysical.

For me it’s a great pleasure to meet them all in person, which adds to the gathering of previous days! Althought we met in the data networks for a couple of years now (including on the SDF), this encounter makes me very happy, of course.

The event is carried out for the benefit of the cyber-trasher masses. These involves a network of organized communities framed in the recycling and development of computer equipment. They restore computers to their original design specifications, but also apply updates and modifications to give them new practicality.

The union of the power of knowledge and the mind while focused on a great task allows them to modernize the bowels of the hardware.

How the hackers do it

New and more powerful memory chips beef up machines that previously could only be described as zombies. Through the implantation of seasoned electronic brains extracted from mechanical corpses, and perhaps using hearts whose format is a new solid state drive, our delusional cyber-surgeons can breathe new life into them.

Undoubtly this needs a new soul, and not just any: the Cyber-surgeons install strongly ideologized operating systems under the banner of Free Software. These multipurpose programs are generally derivatives of the GNU Project added to Linux-type kernels: they can thus be copied, manipulated and extended freely without any imposition thanks to the licenses that specifically allow and guarantee it. So it becomes possible to revive the unearthed machines as if they were a tamed Frankenstein capable of serving the People.

The hardware could be considered important, but we must give it the dimension that it really has: that of being a malleable tool for joint work aimed at the Liberation of men, which must be superior.

The hacker show

Thus we find a lightning setup that revolves around several booths of Arduino devices to draw, mixing modern hardware with handmade controllers. Those are hacks involving levers and buttons from old unserviceable arcade machines. Some devices mutate to generate sound or interact with cell phone cameras or cathode ray tube television sets, as the screens illuminate with games. An almost fossilized Commodore 64s is revived thanks to its electronic DNA. Originally it was assembled in the 80s by the suburban Drean washing machine factory.

Some videos: https://toobnix.org/videos/embed/ab6b213a-53d4-4358-8a14-64bee1b6e17a?start=25s

Another video: https://toobnix.org/w/irCwpgpuSjkGMzrom1NHRK

In the #retrocomputing PC equipment area, several DOS games were made available to the public. Several old gaming PC were used, including a remarkable PC AT clones with a 12-inch amber monochrome monitor - a present from the Argentine computer past.

In addition to being able to enjoy the classics Arkanoid, BlockOut or Prince of Persia, we tagged it by leaving a message from the hackers of texto-plano.xyz (our public UNIX community in Spanish) among the source code in the AUTOEXEC.BAT.

As often happens, the true social network is friendship, and the Club is engendered by its mutants, who appear in dozens of colors, of all ages and genders.

Children shall have the Right and Duty to have fun in a healthy way, without privative licenses of any kind clouding their existence. That is why at their side there was what was boldly described as “the end of the world’s largest cybercafe with recycled Linux”. Some twelve notebooks with Huayra GNU/Linux ran an Unreal-derived FPS to make such a boast. There were frenzied laser and rocket firefights, arbitrated by a router recovered from a trash bin and improved with OpenWRT, producing a wired local area network without any appreciable delay. Not bad for these little machines. None of the tech-savvy thinks those suffer from lack of power.

https://toobnix.org/w/7HZBsqu13uNcddpBGBpYSn

Where there is a need, there is a right.

At the end we met a lot of people from the data network scene, and then the interactive music show are launched. Live and loud chiptune music by a lineup of maestros of the genre like Mambo Rivas, Cinematronic, Coke n Aspirin and some another in charge of speakers and video walls.

I left listening to the most wonderful music, which for me is synthesized with Free Software.

~perón

I would enjoy going to something like this

Some views on the CCK show: https://toobnix.org/w/1uxufYdM1oHvF1y96wnU5n

I recognize some peeps from the Flashback demo parties too.

New encounter!

Tecnology +Art + Games

Cybercirujas invites you to experiment and play with retrocomputers and consoles. Videogames of all the areas, argentine arcades, alternative control games. Live chiptune music. Text-art. An oportunity to thing about recycling computers and technology.

#Cybercirujas Balance of 2023

This has been a year of intense, great organizational activities, a year of our First Federal Cyberciruja Meeting and a community that does not stop its growing.

2023 will be remembered for several reasons, but for our community it will go down in history as the year in which Cybercirujas finished establishing itself as a group of grass-root techno-political and hacktivism, thanks to our First Federal Ciberciruja Meeting. In this Meeting, cybersurgeons from all over Argentina shared a territorial space, could see each other’s faces and necks, screw each other, bitch at each other, hug each other, settle differences and, fundamentally, improve their thinking and organizational practices. But all that can read that better in its corresponding post.

Delivered hardware balance:

Now, as we did with the previous balance, here we have the figures of equipment that we, as an Organized Community, were able to refurbish and deliver to those compatriots in dire need of working hardware to work, study or simply watch movies or enjoy video games.

• CABA Ciberciruja Cell: 41 computers delivered.
• Córdoba Cyberciruja Cell: 121 computers delivered.
• La Plata Cyberciruja Cell: 6 computers delivered
• Rosario Cyberciruja Cell: 26 computers delivered
• Posadas Cybersurgery Cell: 2 computers delivered.

This gives us a figure of 196 computers delivered, with a computer being understood as fully functional hardware ready to be used. In the case of the Córdoba Cell, they have broken down their deliveries in a more detailed form, that can be seen in this flyer. For operational reasons we made another breakdown, just as we did the previous year.

It is worth highlighting some points regarding Ciberciruja cells.

On the one hand, the Posada Cell is in formation, so we are looking for cybersurgeons in Misiones who want to join this new chapter. There is a lot of work to do there and given the current situation, our action is more than necessary. A similar situation occurs with the La Plata Cell, which is now ready to get a working space for action (this is been articulated with different sectors of society).

On the other hand, CABA’s Ciberciruja Cell had to be strongly restructured due to having lost its working space within the R-Lab. They are currently working at one of its member’s home, but for operational reasons, an own location is required, such as to have free access at any given day or time to be able to collect, repair and deliver hardware. If you know of such a place or want to help us to get a working space, do not hesitate to contact cybercirujas@disroot.org.

Balance of events

Once again this year was full of cybersurgery events. This time those had become more federalized than ever, and even transcended the borders of our South American homeland.

To begin with, Cybercirujas was invited to a discussion for the University of Glasgow, within the framework of "The Low Carbon and Sustainable Computing (LOCOS) where we talked about the Latin American perspective of technopolitics and hacktivism.

In Córdoba, as always, the classic “hardware hot pots” were held, counting as of December of this year, 20 consecutive uninterrupted meetings which can be seen in the high numbers of equipment delivered by the Córdoba chapter. Some videos of those meetings can be seen in this playlist. We invite Cordobans to share more audiovisual material to be uploaded. Also in Córdoba they participated in the Conference of the National Teacher Training Institute, where Nico and Cris presented their cybersurgery talks. Nor should we forget that the First Federal Meeting was held in Córdoba as we explained in the corresponding post.

Hackfun’s Rosarinx comrades, members of our community, also organized their event in cybersurgery: cyberpunk, recycled retrocomputers and retroconsoles got self-awareness to celebrate the anniversary of this group.

Finally, it was also a year of great events in CABA. The classic “Cybersurgery Club” event at the Mandril Theater began to be held in Tacheles with a total success in terms of attendance, not only from the public but also from cybersurgery projects perspective. Another totally successful, convening and highly influential event were the meetings held during the Buenos Aires winter holidays at the Kirchner Cultural Center, which allowed us to gain unexpected visibility.

Conclusions and final words:

It has been an arduous year of work and cybersurgeon activism in Argentina. We have had our frictions as a community, which is somewhat logical when a group begins to grow. But we have been able to navigate those differences during our Federal Meeting, which reinforced the ties that we had digitally woven and that we were finally able to anchor thanks to seeing each other’s faces and necks.

We have taken several more steps in the construction of a great federal hacktivist movement with a clear political tendency, which could be seen in our Federal Meeting, where the majority of attendees made it clear that Cybercirujas is a political group with no affiliation to any partisan structure. In that sense, the branch of feminist cybersurgeons planted its flag by formalizing its actions. We have made our line clear:

• We fight against planned obsolescence,
• We put in question the massive computer market that threatens the environment
• We proclaim the right to repair and the techno-empowerment of civil society.

In this key, Cybercirujas also activated a Mastodon server, Rebel.ar, which is under complete cyberciruja administration, in Argentine territory, using renewable energies and available to anyone who wants to inhabit a fair, sovereign and free cyberspace, free of oppression and control algorithms.

Finally, it is public knowledge that our country is close to experiencing extremely difficult scenarios and situations. Today, more than ever, it is worth remembering the words that have already deeply penetrated the national idiosyncrasy: the organization conquers time and today we are more cybersurgeons than ever. Dark times are coming and we must rise to the occasion to collaborate with our compatriots in any way. Our actions today will be increasingly necessary.

Cybercirujas wishes you a happy holiday season. Let us continue in this fight and militancy, so that our Organized Community grows and flourishes everywhere so that we can collaborate with those who need it, not from charity, but from struggle and organization.