Permacomputing in the arts: a new practice-oriented way to teach computer technology and environmental sustainability in art and design education?

My research investigates the concept of permacomputing, a blend of the words permaculture and computing, as a potential field of convergence of technology, arts, environmental research and activism, and as a subject of future school curricula in art and design. This concept originated in online subcultures, and is currently restricted to creative coding communities. I study in what way permacomputing principles may be used to redefine how art and design education is taught. More generally, I want to research the potential of permacomputing as a critical, sustainable, and practical alternative to the way digital technology is being taught in art education, where students mostly rely on tools and techniques geared towards maximising productivity and mass consumption. This situation is at odds with goals for sustainable production and consumption.

I want to research to what degree the concept of permacomputing can be broadened and applied to critically revised, sustainable ways of making computing part of art and design education and professional practice. This research will be embedded in the design curriculum of Willem de Kooning Academy, focused on redefining the role of artists and designers to contribute to future modes of sustainable organisation and production. It is aligned with Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences sectorplan masters VH, in particular managing and directing sustainable transitions.
This research builds upon twenty years of experience in the creative industries. It is an attempt to generalise, consolidate, and structure methods and practices for sustainable art and design production experimented with while I was course director of a master programme at WdKA. Throughout the research I will be exchanging with peers and confirmed interested parties, a.o.: Het Nieuwe Instituut (NL), RUAS Creating 010 kenniscentrum (NL), Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts (NO), Mikrolabs (NO), Varia (NL), Media Arts department at RHU (UK), Media Studies at UvA (NL).

Eindrapportage

The research aim was to investigate to what degree permacomputing—a nascent concept and community of
practice supporting more resilience and regenerativity in computer and network technology—could be
broadened and applied to critically revised, sustainable ways of making computing part of art and design
education and professional practice. This research was embedded at Willem de Kooning Academy (WdKA),
with partners from the cultural sector and the creative industries, in the Netherlands and Europe. It focused
on the challenge and opportunities to redefine the role of artists and designers to contribute to future modes
of organisation and production in relation to ICT and sustainability.
The research demonstrated that permacomputing was a plausible pathway to educate about the negative
material, social, and environmental externalities linked to art, design and culture practices relying uncritically
on computational infrastructures and devices. It also shown that the recycling, re-use, repair of obsolete
computer hardware, combined with careful selection of software were useful ways to significantly lessen the
harm generated by these externalities on a short-/mid- term. This approach also established that working
under material and computational constraints opened the way for other forms of creativity and innovation.
However, the research also identified that this approach currently works best as means to an end, and would
loose its transformative potential if considered as an end in itself. As such permacomputing was a useful and
instrumental practical first step towards a more thorough and complete systemic rethinking of computational
culture in the global north. For interested future artists and designers it offered a framework to work towards
such changes and helped them pay attention to certain aspects of their practice and production. Finally,
through the practice of permacomputing, the project isolated 3 important challenges that are summarised in
section 4 of this report.