Homebrew High-Tech

Abstract

This chapter explores the seemingly contradictory intersection of homebrew and high-tech. Drawing on encounters between local ISPs and WiFi makers, I argue that this conflation signals a distinctive cultural way of imagining and making a version of wireless broadband highly localised to the suburban backyards of Adelaide. Building on the previous chapter, I examine the role of ‘making-do’: a distinctly Australian version of modding interlocked with the peculiarities of the local landscape, weather and colonial history. Sticky tape is also reviewed as a mundane tool and symbol of a way of working. Both concepts represent unique ways of re-imagining how innovation and inventiveness happen in the suburbs of Australia.