Relational Aesthesis in Permacomputing Practice: Building a Solar Powered Website from Reclaimed Materials

2026-05-28

AI Summary

This study advances permacomputing from critical reflection toward a tangible alternative computing paradigm to counteract the ecological and social harms of digital technologies. Through design research, the authors migrate a personal website to a self-hosted server built from repurposed electronic components and powered by solar energy, integrating permacomputing principles with relational aesthetics to reconfigure the material and perceptual relationships between humans and digital infrastructure. Innovatively drawing on relational aesthetics and non-place theory, the work emphasizes embodied and visual practices to foster collective technological autonomy. By employing minimalist design and resource-adaptive strategies, it demonstrates viable pathways beyond technological maximalism. Findings indicate that community co-creation effectively addresses challenges in hardware reuse, affirming permacomputing’s transformative potential in cultivating responsible socio-technical relations.

Abstract

Permacomputing is a nascent concept and community of practice concerned with developing alternative computing systems grounded in principles of resilience, reuse, sufficiency, and ecological limits. However, research engaging with permacomputing remains in an early stage of development, raising concerns about whether permacomputing can move beyond reflective critique to become a meaningful alternative practice. Through a research-through-design case study, we documented our experience moving a personal website from a data centre in Texas to a self-hosted solar-powered server built from reclaimed electronics. Guided by permacomputing principles and relational aesthesis, we explore what it takes for permacomputing to reconfigure material and perceptual relations. Our findings reveal the frictions of moving away from a maximalist techno-aesthetic while attempting to re-use already existing technologies, potential ways to overcome these challenges through building a community of practice, and the transformative potential of visibilizing and visceralizing digital infrastructures to cultivate more responsible ways of relating to technology. This paper contributes to emerging research on permacomputing and its aesthetics by bringing it into dialogue with theories of non-place and relational aesthesis. Rather than functioning as a purely symbolic gesture, permacomputing practices can cultivate greater collective autonomy, agency, and responsibility in how communities engage and create meaning within digital infrastructures. In the context of socio-ecological crises and anti-colonial transformation, our research offers a situated approach to building and relating to computing technologies in the ashes of dominant technological paradigms.

Problem

• permacomputing
• relational aesthesis
• digital infrastructure
• sustainability
• reclaimed materials

Innovation

• permacomputing
• relational aesthesis
• solar-powered server
• reclaimed electronics
• digital infrastructure visibilization