Recently I found myself playing around with Niri, a horizontally scrolling window manager for GNU/Linux-based systems. What began as an exploration into intuitive "chord-based" keybindings for driving the OS evolved into something much bigger. You can head over to the code repository on Github to install and experiment with the result:
Turns your computer into a thinking box that you can drive like a Nintendo on even the lowest common denominator hardware available.
What I seem to have stumbled upon, I am now calling an example of "solarpunk cybernetics". For those unfamiliar with these concepts, we can define them as follows:
Cybernetics is "the theory/science of communication and control in the animal and the machine".
Solarpunk is "an optimistic environmentalist subgenre of speculative fiction, art, and design that envisions future life on Earth transformed by the use of sustainable energy, close co-existence of human beings with nature, and progressive sociopolitical values".
Mash these two things together and I believe what emerges is humanity-preserving technologies rooted in Luddism and connection with the material world.
I posit three core positions of this kind of cybernetics:
- Refusal of technological intrusion into bodily membranes.
Our interface with hardware remains an external one (skin-contact or more distant), devices can be effortlessly 'unplugged from' at any moment, and bodily autonomy and sovereignty are preserved. - Somatic / autonomic integration of technological augmentations.
Learning and integrating a technology becomes a bodily practise, like riding a bike. At first it can be cumbersome, but with a little practise it should become an effortless 'background' / 'automatic' process. No conscious thought should be required to interface with a technology. 'Better' technologies are those that require a shorter learning phase in order to become second-nature extensions of the body. - Doing more with less.
Wherever possible, specialist hardware should not be required. Older, cheaper and more ubiquitous devices necessarily imply reduced environmental impacts and increased financial and material accessibility.
I am very curious to find other experiments in this area, and to explore what may be possible with other human/computer interfaces (eg. mobile & touch device UIs, hacking earbuds).