{"id":1080,"date":"2022-03-08T14:53:59","date_gmt":"2022-03-08T14:53:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2022\/03\/08\/these-artists-are-making-tiny-roms-that-will-probably-outlive-us-all\/"},"modified":"2022-03-08T14:54:00","modified_gmt":"2022-03-08T14:54:00","slug":"these-artists-are-making-tiny-roms-that-will-probably-outlive-us-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2022\/03\/08\/these-artists-are-making-tiny-roms-that-will-probably-outlive-us-all\/","title":{"rendered":"These artists are making tiny ROMs that will probably outlive us all"},"content":{"rendered":"

Source: https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/22935074\/hundred-rabbits-uxn-roms-preservation<\/a>
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In 2017, on a 10-meter-long sailboat off the coast of French Polynesia, Canadian artists Devine Lu Linvega and Rekka Bellum \u2014 also known as the two-person studio \/ collective Hundred Rabbits \u2014 realized that something had to change about the way they worked. Devine<\/a> is a software developer who also makes music as Aliceffekt<\/a>, and Rek <\/a>is an illustrator and writer. Trying to download the latest Apple Xcode update, the pair had to place their iPhone in a bag<\/a> and hoist it up the mast; the OS was around 10GB, but their SIM cards only had 5GB of data, and it took multiple attempts to get the job done. \u201cAt that moment, we began to feel like the modern development stack was utterly incompatible with our life,\u201d the pair explain over email. <\/p>\n

It was the beginning of something small but profound: the Uxn<\/a>, a virtual ecosystem to make experimental tools and games that exists outside the revolving door of always-online tech anchored to subscriptions, needlessly complicated upgrades, and increasingly problematic forms of digital ownership. It is essentially an emulator, to translate the actions of one computer onto another, that can prolong the life of digital data tied to aging hardware and software. In line with the Rabbits\u2019 love of storytelling, Rek even brought the Uxn to life as a tiny ox-like creature<\/a> (often accompanied by the humanoid Varvara<\/a>, who represents a portable computing system built on Uxn).<\/p>\n

In 2016, Devine and Rek chose a life at sea after being inspired by \u201cliveaboard\u201d videos<\/a>. They bought Pino<\/a>, a 1982 Yamaha sailboat, and set about learning how to maintain their new craft. As their adventures expanded and they adjusted to living off solar panels, limited batteries, and donated secondhand devices, they learned to pare down on conveniences like food refrigeration<\/a>. \u201cOur decision to liveaboard shaped our current use of technologies, but in the beginning, we naively believed that we could keep on using the same convenient products we were already familiar with,\u201d they say.<\/p>\n

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Pino, Hundred Rabbits\u2019 1982 Yamaha sailboat.<\/em><\/figcaption>Image: Hundred Rabbits<\/cite><\/p>\n

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Today, the Hundred Rabbits website<\/a> has grown into a living repository for a bounty of seafaring knowledge, solarpunk<\/a>-driven philosophy, and a window into their work \u2014 esoteric offline-first software that emphasizes sustainability and the values of permacomputing<\/a>, a term coined by Finnish artist and writer Ville-Matias \u201cViznut\u2019\u2019 Heikkil\u00e4. It\u2019s a compelling perspective that flies in the face of the metaverse hype surrounding us today, and on another level, the need for everything to be constantly connected or tied up with blockchain technology in the name of democratization. The right-to-repair movement and long-term approaches to computing are seen as more impactful, sustainable factors in empowering regular people to take control of their own software and hardware.<\/p>\n

Thinking about their previous work, the Rabbits realized they needed to work off something small, low-tech, and portable that used common peripherals like mice and keyboards. \u201cThe projects that survive the treadmill of ever-changing physical hardware, are the ones designed explicitly for small virtual machines (such as Another World<\/a>), which are easy to play today due to their targeting of a portable and virtual core,\u201d they explain. Another factor in their approach to making something new was using technology with available documentation \u2014 given their long periods away from the internet, they were best off using open-source technologies that they could troubleshoot themselves.<\/p>\n

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