I liked the paper on #Permacomputing #Aesthetics (https://monoskop.org/images/6/6a/Mansoux_Aymeric_et_al_2023_Permacomputing_Aesthetics.pdf) tremendously, especially in tone and clarity. I was left with the feeling that something was amiss, though, and after some delving I believe it to be the discourse on aesthetics. The term causes me trouble all the time, never quite being able to grasp its meaning or application.

The text is basically a juxtaposition of permacomputing aesthetics against maximalist techno-aesthetics. The former is a perspective of active engagement with one's environment.

> “Because of the need to reconfigure the modes of production and organisation within computational practices, this calls for a different understanding of aesthetics, one that goes beyond the formal evaluation of how things look, but addresses how aesthetics can also be systems of relations, sensing and making sense that are already present in the process of making.” (Mansoux et al., 2023, p. 1)

Maximalist techno-aesthetics on the other hands are a capitalist's tool to promise and sell a future that never arrives. Everything we acquire becomes just a bug-ridden preview for a sure to come updated version.

The past few days I've been thinking a lot again about one of the thought/design models most influential on my own #OpenSource practice: Frank Duffy's architectural pace layers (and Stewart Brand's subsequent extension to different contexts), their different timescales and interactions as basis for resilient system design:

1. Each layer exists & operates independently, moves at different timescales (from seconds to millennia and beyond)
2. Each layer influences and only interacts with its direct neighbors

"Fast layers innovate, slow ones stabilize." — S.Brand

I always found that model super helpful for analyzing and deciding how to deal with individual projects and components in terms of focus/effort, and asking myself which layer this thing might/should be part of. Lately though, I keep on trying to figure out how to better utilize that model to orient my own future practice, also with respect to the loose theme of #PermaComputing and how to frame and better organize my own approaches to it, incl. how to reanimate or repurpose some of the related, discontinued, but not invalid research & projects I've been doing along these lines over the past 15 years...

I understand and appreciate most of the focus on #FrugalComputing & #RetroComputing-derived simplicity as starting points and grounding concepts for attempting to build a more sustainable, personal, comprehensible and maintainable tech, but these too can quickly become overly dogmatic and maybe too constraining to ever become "truly" permanent (at least on the horizon of a few decades). I think the biggest hurdles to overcome are social rather than technological (e.g. a need for post-consumerist, post-spectacular behaviors), so I'm even more interested in Illich/Papert/Nelson/Felsenstein-inspired #ConvivialComputing, #SocialComputing, IO/comms/p2p, #Accessibility, UI, protocol and other resiliency design aspects becoming a core part of that research and think the idea of pace layering can be a very powerful tool to take into consideration here too, at the very least for guiding (and questioning) how to approach and structure any perma-computing related research itself...

Given the current physical and political climate shifts, is it better to continue working "upwards" (aka #BottomUpDesign), i.e. primarily focusing on first defining slow moving, low-level layers as new/alternative foundations (an example here would be the flurry of VM projects, incl. my own)? Or, is it more fruitful and does the situation instead call for a more urgent focus on fast-moving pace layer experiments and continuously accumulating learnings as fallout/sediment to allow the formation of increasingly more stable, but also more holistically informed, slower moving structural layers to build upon further?

It's a bit of chicken vs. egg! In my mind, right now the best approach seems to be a two-pronged one, alternating from both sides, each time informing upcoming work/experiments on the opposite end (fast/slow) and each time involving an as diverse as possible set of non-techbro minds from various fields... 🤔

Permacomputing Aesthetics: Potential and Limits of Constraints in Computational Art, Design and Culture

This coming wednesday 14 June, @praxeology @sandu @viznut and myself will give a quick overview of a paper about #permacomputing at the Ninth Computing within Limits 2023 workshop.

Paper can be found there: https://limits.pubpub.org/pub/6loh1eqi/release/1 and the whole collection of LIMITS 23 papers is avail there https://limits.pubpub.org/ninth-computing-within-limits-2023

Our paper is a personal take on the potential and... limits of the current permacomputing practices in the context/constraints of #art #design and #culture production.

I will attend the workshop at the Amsterdam LIMITS hub hosted by @dosch

https://doc.pondr.nl/s/wt7vmXF0v#

Big thanks to our reviewers Eli Blevis, Birgit Penzenstadler, and Robert Soden for their helpful feedback. We also thank
the different groups and people currently gravitating around the term permacomputing for contributing to a growing number of rich discussions and debates. We are particularly grateful for the suggestions from @Greta @michal and @neauoire as
well as to @creativecoding for providing us with a platform to share an early reflection on permacomputing aesthetics. Finally, we would especially like to thank @loriemerson and @l03s for their substantial and stimulating comments! ❤