BIO

Zoe Romano is an independent researcher, craftivist, digital strategist e lecturer focused on social innovation, women in tech, technology, open design. Maddalena Fragnito, a PhD doctoral student at the Centre for Postdigital Cultures (UK), is a cultural activist exploring the intersections between art, transfeminisms, critical theory, technologies and politics – focusing on the practices of commoning social reproduction. During the last two years, they have been working together on the DSI4EU project and the Rebelling with Care publication (2019). They are now opening KINlab, an interdisciplinary lab in the San Siro neighbourhood in Milan.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

OBOT

OBOT wants to implement a citizen science approach into the investigation of the womxn body, specifically, around three conditions of life: teenagehood, fertility and menopause. The project wants to identify a toolbox of processes and practices to design a replicable blueprint for a neighbourhood-based wet-lab by gathering collective intelligence through DIT analysis. We called it OBOT, Our Bodies Our Tech, to give homage to the 70s Our Bodies, Ourselves publication. Our aim is to accelerate the reflection and experimentation of open and shared technologies around bodies, within and beyond their biological sex determination.

Up until now, most of the biohacking labs have been focused on experimentation, art and making by attracting mostly middle class highly educated men. With OBOT we want to challenge the complexity of the topic and lower the barriers for a more diverse crowd, through the creation of contents and experiences with which people can relate to. OBOT aims to explore new open-source approaches with practices of collaboration, co-creation and citizen science, by fostering an inclusive environment around womxn’s care, starting from a neighbourhood level. Moreover, we want to position OBOT as a collective advocacy-awareness by monitoring the boom of commercial startups that are occupying the market of fertility and hormones measurements.