Cyberdecks, going analog, and convivial technology

Cyberdecks, Going Analog, and Convivial Technology

People are moving away from corporate-controlled tech and making their own. How the designs of cyberdecks are being driven by women. And how medieval guilds, Luddites, and the Arts and Crafts movement are all connected to our current moment.

Within the algorithmic bubbles beneath the surface of the internet, there is a growing wave of people who are opting out of social media, opting out of technology, or simply opting out of the corpo-internet-techbubble hellscape. As the internet flattens into a few social media platforms, with their bland, smooth, optimized designs, we are losing the "color" of the internet.

The corpo-internet-techbubble hellscape is something that you are already very familiar with. Everything feels the same, each platform copies features from their competitor, every one of the major social media platforms feels like they are created in a lab run by UI/UX designers who are desperately trying to keep you in an algorithmic prison by getting you addicted to the gambling machine that is the infinite feed. Many people have talked about this, the enshittification of the internet (and arguably everything around us), the flattening of not only aesthetics but also cultural reproduction.

There is an interesting breeze that's blowing through in certain corners of the internet at the moment. What feels like subtle shifts away from our computers and phones, and towards things we seemingly left in the past. But at the same time, an outlook on technology that both reaches into the past, and looks forward to a different future. The things we left behind. The things we forgot. The things we miss.

We have forgotten what it means to be bored. We have forgotten what reality feels like when we aren't connected to the tendrils of a machine injecting dopamine directly into our brains - every second of every day. Our brains are collectively being stimulated around the clock. Perpetually plugged into the streams of information, videos, and notifications. At all times, we can distract ourselves from our emotions. We can distract ourselves waiting for the elevator. Distract ourselves using the bathroom. Standing in line waiting for food, the first instinct is to reach for our phones. Technology was supposed to connect us, and yet, we are disconnected by the constant connections.

It's in this disconnection, this isolation, this growing antagonism to the systems that surround us, that the seeds of change are being planted. People are starting to unplug and are returning to things they left behind - or seemingly were left behind but were always there. This is apparent in the rise of "journal tok", where people on TikTok are posting about returning to written journals, planners, and sketchbooks. All of this, however, is a contradiction in and of itself, because people are posting online about how they are moving parts of their lives offline. This contradiction is important (when talking about consumerism and trends), but it's also just an indication of the current time. In order to share information, you most likely will have to share it online - to a mass audience - outside of your local/physical space.

People are also starting to dust off their old MP3 players, or finding old ones in thrift stores, in direct opposition to music streaming platforms. Piracy is back in full force. Why pay a subscription to a music streaming platform that can change what they host at any moment? Why support a music streaming platform that doesn't even pay artists, when you can pirate the music? The idea of ownership has been eroded by corporations that rent the things we used to own back to us. The rise of owning physical media (or pirating) is directly connected to people returning to physical journals, planners, and sketchbooks.

Tangentally, and almost on the exact opposite spectrum, other people are embracing technology as a way to remove themselves from the corporate internet. But this embrace follows the same idea as the overarching return to physical media - but now it's about the return to an older thought process around computers and a more future-focused outlook that questions the trajectory of computing going forward. Computers that are personalized, built, and modified not just for their use, but for specific aesthetics, and for specific and personal reasons. That's why we are seeing another wave of resurgence with cyberdecks.

Cyberdecks Are Changing for the Better

I say that cyberdecks are having another wave of resurgence because the interest in cyberdecks waxes and wanes, like everything in life, there is a cycle to the ideas coming into focus and out of focus, washing into the shore and washing back out to the sea of ethereal thought. In my own view, cyberdecks have remained popular because of hacker culture. And all of the cultural norms wrapped up in hacker subcultures carries along with it. Specifically, the design of cyberdecks over the years has maintained a steady state of projects that maintain a military or scientific bend to them. They are, after all, influenced by science fiction about dystopian future societies that focus on war, dystopian corporate megacities, or interstellar travel.

What Is a Cyberdeck?

Jorvon Moss and his hand-built robot companion can explain it pretty well: In terms of the history of the term, it originated from William Gibson's book Neuromancer, which is widely associated with the birth of the cyberpunk subgenre. Cyberdecks were originally thought of as small personal computers, mostly used by "console cowboys" who were skilled hackers living in a futuristic dystopian world. But these cyberdecks were customized and tailored based on the unique qualities of each person and were the way that people accessed cyberspace (this book coined that term), which was an early conception of the internet.

These aesthetics have stayed relatively the same, and you can see the general design vibe in this gallery. Most cyberdeck builds incorporate different small-scale manufacturing techniques using 3D printing, wood, or laser-cut metal parts that can be made in a home workshop. The key thing with cyberdeck designs is that they typically reuse parts from other objects. The first example is a common design. I just like how Justohl designed the internal parts and the face frame to sit nearly flush with the edge of the waterproof case. But you can see the general influence of military-esque design, or influences from what you might imagine on a spaceship.

If you have been wrapped up in hacker culture, or tech culture in general, at one point in time, you most likely would have wanted to build your own cyberdeck. But with this being a niche interest, cyberdecks haven't really captured the attention of people outside of specific subcultures. But I feel like this is quickly changing.

Cyberdeck Renaissance

At the moment, I'm seeing an explosion of videos on social media about cyberdecks. But these videos aren't coming from the usual hacker/tech enthusiast/nerd circles where cyberdecks are pretty common. But now, it's spreading outside of those circles, and there is a growing embrace of different aesthetics. Sure, the people really spearheading this new wave are tech enthusiasts, but the design choices are becoming more varied, deeper, and I would argue even more personalized.

As with many innovations, these changes are coming from marginalized people. Specifically, women, non-binary people, the trans community, and people of color. The creator Ube Boobey I think kicked things off recently with their TikToks about creating a cyberdeck using a clutch purse as the shell of the cyberdeck. Every day, I'm seeing new cyberdeck builds using upcycled and reused materials, from vintage storage boxes, purses, tool boxes, and other materials that are really pushing the design focus of cyberdecks in a whole new direction.

I hate the word "trend" to describe a cultural shift. Though for some people, all of this is a passing trend to follow, a phase to post about on social media, or another excuse to consume. This idea of disposable trends will be touched on later because it ties into the nature of social media in general. But I feel like there is a spark happening right now that could grow into a larger fire. I don't see this aesthetic and overall design shift as a passing phase, but the next evolution of cyberdecks. I see this as an indication of something larger, a general movement towards something new and old.

@vickieevicee made a great TikTok on the connection of women to this resurgence of cyberdecks and what that all has to do with solarpunk. (TikTok won't allow me to embed their video directly into this article - it's a setting in TikTok that has to be enabled.) But I will add the direct link here to watch.

Women have always pushed computing to their limits. We wouldn't have computers without the work of Ada Lovelace, who came up with the basis of what is considered the first computer. We wouldn't have personal computers without Mary Allen Wilkes. And we wouldn't have spectrum hopping, which is the core tech behind wireless networking and Bluetooth, without Hedy Lamarr. Highly recommend checking out the CyberFeminism index and CyberFeminism in general to learn more.

What's Old Is New - What's New Is Old

The return of physical media, the rejection of an increasingly industrialized and automated society, people taking their ideas and life back to paper journals, and the rejuvenation of cyberdecks are all connected to our current situation, our current world, and our current conditions. But at the same time, it's a continuation of cycles that we have seen in the past.

Artificial Intelligence / Modern Capitalism | The Industrial Revolution | The Middle Ages

Our modern times mirror our history. Both today and during the Industrial Revolution, there existed veins of society that rejected the conditions of the time. Technology being used as a driver solely for profit. Regardless of the impacts on humanity, society at large, or the environmental damage that this reckless profit-seeking causes. Every trade and vocation being automated, people losing their livelihoods to automated machines that can do the work of ten people - but produce flat and easily reproducible commodities instead of things that had a personal touch, that were made with care. Replacing the training and expertise of people who had spent decades, or sometimes their entire lives, mastering their craft. Cities and rural areas being poisoned by the pollution of these industrial machines. Mass unemployment. Huge gaps in wealth between the rich and the working class.

We have been here before and have repeated the cycle since the Middle Ages. The commons were taken away, walled, and gated off. Workers' guilds were dissolved, and the craftsmen were pushed into drudgery. Work was in service to a Lord; work was in service to the wealthy oligarchs who seized control of the commons and created their own kingdoms. A thousand kings in the shells of broken countries. Large swaths of people under the control and mercy of a "king" who decided they had a divine right to rule purely based on their own self-aggrandizing delusions. The lords who do their king's bidding control housing, control agriculture, control commerce, and determine the lives and flows of the common people. Where they can travel, when they can travel, how much of their labor is stolen from them in the form of taxes, levies, and offerings. A permanent underclass of serfs. Serfs who do the work to keep kingdoms running. Serfs who tend to the fields, who produce the goods, who raise the livestock, who run the economy. Perpetually kept in line by private armies who are beholden to the wealthy. Serfs who, in order to live, need to work to provide an income, to afford housing, to eat, to obtain the basic necessities of survival. Serfs who are pushed slowly to their deaths in the service of a small group of wealthy people who own the land, who own the factories and workshops, who own every business, and who own every home.

Forests were clear-cut in the pursuit of profit. Rivers were poisoned and drained to feed the system of production. Waste was dumped in sensitive ecosystems. Animals were driven to extinction for trade, or for land, or because their homes were destroyed by industrialization.

The Middle Ages, the Industrial Revolution, and our current Techno-Feudalist time are all connected. We still have lords (land lords, the bourgeoisie), we still have kings who enclose the commons (billionaires who enclosed the commons of the internet), who enforce violence with the hand of private armies of knights (the police and military), who demand that we provide for them while they subjugate us.

Medieval Guilds & The Arts and Crafts Movement

Medieval guilds were created during feudal times as a challenge to the labor exploitation of the working class of the time. In some areas, guilds were organized by specific crafts. Metalsmithing, woodworking, and textiles are some examples. Guilds had specific guidelines on quality, and they created widespread quality control over the goods produced by the artisans in the guild. If a woodworker produced bad-quality furniture, their guild could basically force them to remake it to their quality standards.

Guilds were basically worker cooperatives (in some cases) or could be thought of as trade-specific labor unions, though their inner workings were far less democratic compared to modern labor unions. Guilds acted like unions in that they had members who ran the Guild, they provided jobs and training to apprentices to learn specific trades, and they would often offer room and board for people learning a craft until they became proficient enough to work on their own, and pay their dues back to the guild. But most importantly, they provided a safety net in their collective approach to production that d