Hardware hacking ‘Hardware hacking’ is a term used to describe any method of repurposing equipment that has been designed for one purpose so that it can be used by an artist in another way. It is a process of commandeering existing circuits so that the artist can achieve results not conceived by the original manufacturer. The circuitbending involved in this can spark an interest in electronic music and electronics and it is not uncommon for a circuit-bender to develop traditional skills in electronics so that they start creating more robust (hardware-hacked) instruments. Generally speaking this requires a controlled approach as computers that execute arbitrary code will have limited results beyond a crash. However, in some instances a ‘guess and check’ method with software can be worthwhile, notably when changing portions of software which are pre-defined as data and not instructions