FERTILE GROUNDS
ISSUE 01
Even as existing digital infrastructure fails to embolden truth or bring people together, we are hopeful. In Fertile Grounds we explore how our decaying web can help new networks flourish.
This debut issue of COMPOST magazine features writing and art about technologies, protocols, and communities that enable authentic and trustful connections.
Foreword
A letter from the editors.
You Are A Strange Animal
What does it mean to cultivate an intimate dataset, and where can they be found? An exploration into the poetics, ethics, and value of intimate data.
Sacred Servers
An exploration of the essence we share online, and how to cast our magical powers responsibly.
The Salt of the Cosmos
Frolicking through lithium-powered spaces, we flirt with the possibility of escaping the tidy capture of a regime intent on determining normality and value.
Until the Cows Come Home
In this interactive piece, young women look beyond the obvious. Small communities sustain vernacular narratives through mesh networks and community owned devices.
Seeding the Wild
In peer-to-peer technologies we 'seed' for one another. This essay is an invitation to take such nature metaphors even further into future visions and efforts towards sustainable, diverse, rich and wild network ecosystems.
The Ocean Swallowed a Cable
nibble nibble nibble nibble. undersea cables and fish.
Techno-Futures from Bidar
Bidar offers a different vision for technology, unique to the city's socio-material reality. We present the vision in this piece - fractured, non-cohesive, multi-voiced and ephemeral.
Repairing Broken Links
Just because we figure out who we are online doesn't mean we can easily hold on to our digital pasts. How do we understand the unfolding of our virtual selves, when they're contantly destroyed by the platforms that they once called home?
Stickers
Inspired by Kaoani, these gif stickers are cute pixelated blob emojis from the myspace era of the internet. Download and use them as you like!
Back Cover
Tangents, fragments, and shoutouts!
