The Solidarity Infrastructures class was conceptualized and co-taught by Max Fowler and Alice Yuan Zhang through the School of Poetic Computation. Mark Anthony Hernandez Motaghy supported the class in the Spring 2023 cycle, and Meghna Mahadevan and Oren Robinson in Winter 2024.

A black and white sketch depicts a collage of technological elements including a satellite, solar panels, electrical power lines, servers, computer screens, and satellite dishes, with a mountain range in the background.

'Global Village', sketch by Alice Yuan Zhang, 2023

In this class, we will explore concepts like the slow web, organic Internet, right-to-repair, data sovereignty, minimal computing and anti-computing. Get to know how community tech and organizing go hand-in-hand through real-world case studies. Learn about the creative applications and underlying ideologies of various open source tools and network topologies. Tune into signals of radical communication beyond colonialist legibility. Along the way, we aim to challenge the technocapitalist worldview, breaking the dichotomy of "high" and "low" tech in favor of a needs-based approach that centers collectivist values and the Earth.

Over the course of the class, participants will develop technical skills for running a situated server practice and learn from each others' experiences. Each participant is encouraged to take on a creative project which may range from a small poetic experiment, to archiving personal and familial stories, to collaborating with the neighborhood library, community garden, elderly home, or mutual aid coalition.