This project is part of a developing body of work exploring the creative possibilities of internet-independent WLANs and servers, portable networks, and off-grid energy generation.
WEBPIT 3.0 is a portable system with a crank generator (back-driving DC motor), a PCB board with a supercapacitor that stores the generated energy, and a microcontroller that creates a WLAN and hosts a local server when powered from the supercapacitor. Users can join the server and read HTML poetry on it for as long as there is energy. Then they need to continue cranking.
WEBPIT reflects on the ‘leeching’ nature of IoT devices, often consuming energy even in their ‘sleeping’ states. It questions the role of servitude in online platforms and the obscurity of labour done for their upkeep. WEBPIT is proposed as a speculative network-station for others to carry, gather around and expand on.
Vytautas is a Lithuanian New Media artist, currently based in Helsinki, Finland.
His work focuses on time, rituals, and labour, paying close aention to politics of the
everyday. Mediums range from DYI electronics and creative coding to performance and
theater. His most recent work examines the materiality of networks and their energy use,
spatiality of servers, and poetic properties of coding.
