
	Čau! I’m on a journey to find out more about how DIY cultures of the Eastern Bloc produced resilient, communal and permacomputing tech scenes.

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union’s satellite states in Eastern Europe experienced trade restrictions and shortages, exacerbated by Western embargoes and the USSR’s own command economy. In response, citizens tended to turn to informal, illicit trading, known as parallel markets, to acquire scarce goods. I want to find out how this cross-border exchange of technology and spare parts facilitated:

Tight-knit communities built on mutual trust.
Repairing and treating tech as heirlooms.
Non-aligned designs that mixed Soviet and Western parts.
Creative solutions with amateur hobbyists from unorthodox backgrounds. These spaces were often open to all!
Underground, anti-authoritarian and feminist mindsets.
The normalisation of hacking and tech literacy.

But what is permacomputing?

It’s applying the design system of permaculture to computing.

Focussing on computing practices that centre respecting the planet and ourselves. This can be done by:

Repair
Slow computing & thoughtfulness
Digital diversity
Transdisciplinary thinking
Minimal, low energy, sustainably powered technology

Find out more here: permacomputing.net

I will explore how these networks practised permacomputing (long before the term existed) out of necessity, curiosity and conviviality. I will be taking research trips across the former Eastern Bloc to uncover and document this hidden history in:

Warsaw

Bucharest

Prague

Ljubljana

and

Belgrade

Methods

Interviews with the people who lived it.
Photography of the remains.
Archival research in museums and basements.

Results


The findings will be documented here - live as I go! This is a self-hosted blog built on the same low-resource and self-management ethos. Once the research is done, I will publish a physical zine as an ode to the samizdat culture.

Why does this matter now?

Technology doesn't have to be centralised or wasteful.
The history of surveillance and platform dependency goes back further than we think.
These communities built resilient and maintainable systems because they had to. What wisdom can we take on from that time?
We should reflect on different economic systems and consider how we implement constraints and restrictions while valuing free time and tinkering.

Interested?

Let's have a chat!

I’m looking for funders or collaborative partners to help further the research into something more accessible, put boots on the ground in more locations, help provide tech knowledge to refine the self-hosted digital archive and publish a book.