Nestor and Steffen asked me to write a text for their first book. I answered: "Let's chat, instead". So, over the span of a few days we texted each other without really knowing where this would go. The mostly unedited result can be found on this gem: Handmade Networks
[PS: it's sold out 😥 ]

Here's a blurb for the book!

Handmade Networks presents a body of research-based artworks by Steffen Köhn and Nestor Siré. Their collaborative projects explore how the Cuban people have compensated for their lack of internet connectivity by building massive alternative infrastructures, such as grassroots community computer networks or offline “sneakernets”.

They document how Cubans defy material scarcity by recycling or appropriating obsolete technologies, creating digital exchange platforms on messenger applications, or engaging in play-to-earn blockchain games.

By examining the resilient and resistive potentials of these vernacular infrastructures, Köhn and Siré’s work also reimagines such networks as viable alternatives to the capitalist, consumerist digital infrastructures controlled by an oligopoly of Big Tech companies that have homogenised the global internet.