| About the presentation: |
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This talk explores "smallness" in software through two tools: Humus, a forgetful, Rust-based "composting database", and Querent.py, a Python system for tarot practice built on Humus. Developed by "doing ethnography through writing software" across our home cities (York, Tarragona), these tools embody alternative temporalities and data practices. Tarot, a system structuring intuition while overflowing its own bounds, informs our approach to data representation, revealing tensions between intuitive knowledge and computational schemas in enacting "smallness".
By focusing on situated development and local deployment, we show how small software can engender different affordances, supporting more intuitive ways of knowing. This ongoing work explores practical ways to achieve smallness, contributing to discussions about AI, small data sets, and degrowth. Our tools challenge conventional notions of data persistence and retrieval, offering a glimpse of alternative technological possibilities.
https://github.com/timcowlishaw/enxaneta | About the presenter: |
| Tim Cowlishaw is an interaction designer, researcher and technologist, and a PhD student investigating the ecology and materiality of computation, from a perspective that combines design research, STS, and the environmental humanities. Dr Justin Pickard is an independent researcher and editor based in York, UK. Using ethnography to explore emerging sociotechnical phenomena, his current work focuses on appropriate technology, translocal processes, and communities of practice. |
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