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Earthbound Hardware

This workgroup builds upon eco-feminist principles and propositions for decolonial hardware, such as clay PCB microcontrollers and mud batteries. The material lens of clay and sand informs the exploration of alternative hardware practices, sourcing local materials to develop and speculate upon renewable, site-specific approaches to technology design.

We envision clay and sand—and their transformation into ceramic components and microchips used in

computers—not only as a basis for new aesthetics and imaginaries for future technologies, but also

as a medium whose natural degradation invites us to critically reflect on aspects of permanence and

planned obsolescence in technological design. The inherent fragility and disintegration of such materials

over time become part of the speculative framework: a way to explore hardware that decomposes, returns

to the earth, and resists the logic of disposability and extractive durability that defines most technological

production today.

This approach sparks discussions around fair-trade, ethical, and biodegradable hardware in the pursuit of

environmental justice. By integrating ancient, community-centered craft traditions into circuit-making

as an artistic practice, we challenge colonial legacies, interfere with market-driven imperatives, and open

pathways for imagining technological futures that are materially finite yet socially and ecologically attuned.

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