Permacomputing and Digital Infrastructures

The Permacomputing and Digital Infrastructures Summer School, organized in the context of the Ars Biologica Independent Study Program (ABIS) for Budweis – European Capital of Culture 2028 by the Uroboros collective, brought together artists, designers, researchers, and students to engage with computational culture critically.

Over four days, the program employed permaculture principles and permacomputing practices as generative frameworks and delved into various aspects of digital infrastructure for understanding alternatives to current high-abstraction digital technologies and their material and energy dependencies. Discussions challenged common understandings of tech use, such as whether websites should always be online and key themes included attuning to local contexts and histories, maximizing hardware lifespans, minimizing energy consumption, and emphasizing the reuse and repurposing of existing computational resources.

Documentations, Notifications, Ramifications, and other Outcomes

The summer school tutors and participants were Michal Kuzerac, Enrique Encinas, Lucie Čermáková, Jojo Schütt, Lukáš Rolf, Yaryna and Kris de Decker. Together they contributed to the following:

• Digital Infraestructures and Permacomputing Aesthetics NLM:: a Notebook LM (generative archival system) trained with links, references, papers, notes from chats and discussions, and other materials emerging during the summer school. References and documents feeeeding the system are on the left side of the screen, there are notes on the right column, and in the center, a chat interface where to interact with the data that participants generated through the sessions or added through links. Just type your prompts and see what happens

• Post-Notifications: Nádražní 118/6, České Budějovice was the physical location where the summer school took place. A building with a history of cultural dissemination that continues to this day through the work of ECOC2028. It was built in the late 1800s to function as a post office, to share information, and also to hide it, as it became painfully clear when postal workers were tortured for intercepting incriminating evidence during WWII. Echoing the building histories, some summer school participants created a set of post-notifications—alarms, ringtones, pixel stamps, and other sonic artifacts — that both reveal and conceal information emerging from smartphones and other digital devices. They are hidden here, feel free to download and make this secret public: https://github.com/EnriqueKi/PermaPrompting/tree/main/PermaComputing

• PermaComputingSummerSchool Dithering Tools : Utilities to batch dither / palette‑reduce images and videos in a “low‑tech” ordered Bayer style for size reduction and a consistent “Nádražní 118/6 permacomputing aesthetic” Inspired by the work of Kris De Decker and Low Tech Magazine (https://github.com/lowtechmag/solar_v2). Find the assets for your permacomputing pleasure here : https://github.com/EnriqueKi/PermaPrompting/tree/main/PermaComputing/DitheringTools

• PermaComputingSummerSchool Visuals : images and videos emerging during the summerschool processed using the SummerSchoolDitheringTools -> https://github.com/EnriqueKi/PermaPrompting/tree/main/PermaComputing/Visuals

A special thank you to the Budweis project team for all their support during the summer school. We also want to thank our main partners, the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (AVU) and the Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO).