activities
←# workshop Reticulum Workshop for Grassroots Communication Infrastructure June 2026
This Sunday (21.06.) from 13:00 onwards at the Carolus Cinema Squat in Nijmegen we will come together to gather the digital needs of our communities and figure out together how to set up secure, autonomous communication networks with the Reticulum Network Stack. We choose to focus on Reticulum because it is designed for heterogeneous networks built from various cheap devices, to be deployed in a bottom up way by small communities. It is a toolkit for building many different networks, with a focus on the decentralisation of power, low energy operation, and security. The event is also an opportunity to reimagine the Internet and our digital dependencies and plot together on how to build towards more self-determination and autonomy.
The mesh network stack runs on various platforms. You can run it on your desktop, your home server, your mobile phone or antennas on the roof. In the workshop, we will explore three layers of networking in dedicated working groups:
(1) The content layer, where communities are building the “social worlds of Reticulum” we can inhabit. What services and information communities and users find fruitful to circulate on an autonomous network? Reticulum networks can host “micron pages”, which are like websites from the 1980s. People around the world make them for both global and local circulation. Unlike on the Internet, anyone connected to the network can also host content and become a service provider.
(2) The radio layer, where information is transmitted through waves of energy in the electro-magnetic spectrum. We use chat apps over local peer-to-peer Bluetooth, WiFi, and Lora (“long range”) links, as well as connecting to Reticulum servers on the Internet. We explore the capabilities of each frequency and protocol: when are they useful, what ranges can they cover, which scenarios they fit well? Who can transmit no which frequencies? What does it mean to operate your own network?
(3) The network and transport layers, where the Reticulum Network Stack integrates into scenes, connects communities over time and space, transforming cities. We make some standalone nodes to deploy around Nijmegen to eventually build out an autonomous communication infrastructure. In the course of this operation, we can discuss how local scenes are organised in space, in terms of social relations and aspirations, cultural codes and interoperable political traditions. How can movements network and transform the city, inhabit urban space and invent new forms of life?
The ultimate goal of the workshop is to work towards a paper zine on community networking, based on the experience of the three work groups that explore different socio-technical layers.
- No prior knowledge is needed!
- Bring your laptop if you can.
- After the session dinner will be provided.
More information about the Reticulum Network Stack for community building can be found on the dedicated website here: https://reticulum.community/
The event is open to all, on donation. We call on participants to reflect on gender dynamics during the event, since critical approaches to technology invite the performance of particular masculinities that tend to reproduce patriarchal power relations, even in the guise of hacker cultures and decentralised political aspirations. Please also be aware that participation implies to accept the safer spaces policy of Jantien, which will be introduced at the beginning of the event.
# workshop Project XLR radio experiments June 2026
Project XLR collaborative radio experimentation workshop with Christy Westhovens, Radio WORM and the critical infrastructure lab. We will cover the political fundamentals of radio communication, explore the electromagnetic spectrum as a critical natural resource, and meddle in satellite hacking, heterogeneous networking, and signal identification with software defined radios. For the full workshop series see the announcement from WORM. June 12th at the workshop room of the Amsterdam Humanities Hub. Limited number of registrations through xlr@criticalinfralab.net
# workshop Understanding and researching the datafied state June 2026
Workshop at the 4th International Data Justice Conference “The Datafied State”. The event will be held on 1-2 June 2026 at Cardiff University by Jedrzej Niklas (University of Cambridge) and Fieke Jansen (University of Amsterdam).
Day 1 – Monday, June 1st (Room: 1.09)
# workshop Low-profile and low-energy autonomous networking with Reticulum at AMRO festival, Linz May 2026
AMRO, Art Meets Radical Openness, is a festival, a platform and a community for art, hacktivism and open cultures, organised since 2008 by
servus.at in cooperation with the Linz University of Art, Department of Time-Based Media.
In this workshop, we will explore the possibilities for setting up a decentralized off-grid communications system using the Reticulum communication protocol stack. We choose to focus on Reticulum because it is designed for heterogeneous networks built from various cheap devices, to be deployed in a bottom-up way by small communities.
# workshop Reticulum Workshop Utrecht May 2026
Running your own communications infrastructure has obvious benefits. We live in a world of increasing digital censorship, and are rarely completely in charge of our communications. Even if we choose to use “better” alternatives to WhatsApp, Instagram, etc., we are still always completely reliant on the one underlying network, i.e. “The Internet”. With the push of a button, “The Internet” may all of a sudden become unavailable. In places with oppressive regimes, this has not been uncommon. In the current political climate, it would not be surprising if any political system all of a sudden became repressive.
In this workshop, we will explore the possibilities for setting up a decentralized off grid communications system using the Reticulum communication protocol stack. We choose to focus on Reticulum because it is designed for heterogeneous networks built from various cheap devices, to be deployed in a bottom up way by small communities.
# workshop Statecraft, Sovereignty and Digital Government April 2026
A two-day symposium, 16-17 April, 2026, Goldsmiths, University of London.
Dmitry Kuznetsov and Alex Gekker will present on Russia’s Sovereign AI strategy.
https://www.gold.ac.uk/media-communications/research/statecraft-sovereignty-and-digital-government-
# workshop MaKING Printed Circuit Boards with Wild Clay March 2026
It is an open secret that the hardware in our smart devices contains not only plastics but also conflict minerals such as tungsten, tin, tantalum, silver and gold.
We are investigating alternative hardware from locally sourced materials, so-called ethical hardware, to develop and speculate upon renewable practices for the benefit of both nature and humans.
We are exploring different materials, sentient, low-impact, non-toxic, fair traded, recycled and urban mined means of production.
We aim to challenge the common PCB (printed circuit board) economies in an artistic, creative, positive and responsible way applying feminist hacking as an artistic methodology and critical framework.
https://feministhackerspaces.cargo.site/Clay-PCB-Tutorial – a workshop in partnership with the critical infrastructure lab and Waag from March 30 to April 2, 2026.
# workshop Low-profile and low-energy autonomous networking with Reticulum March 2026
TL;DR: the March workshop is about testing the mesh network with mobile phones (over Bluetooth, WiFi, and LoRa frequencies/protocols), building infrastructure nodes, browsing and making “mu” websites, and hopefully trying out how to run the entire protocol stack on single microcontrollers (with microreticulum).
Running your own communications infrastructure has obvious benefits. We live in a world of increasing digital censorship, and are rarely completely in charge of our communications. Even if we choose to use “better” alternatives to WhatsApp, Instagram, etc., we are still always completely reliant on the one underlying network, i.e. “The Internet”. With the push of a button, “The Internet” may all of a sudden become unavailable. In places with oppressive regimes, this has not been uncommon. In the current political climate, it would not be surprising if any political system all of a sudden became repressive.
In this workshop, we will explore the possibilities for setting up a decentralized off grid communications system using the Reticulum communication protocol stack. We choose to focus on Reticulum because it is designed for heterogeneous networks built from various cheap devices, to be deployed in a bottom up way by small communities. More information is found on the Reticulum Community website.
The mesh network stack runs on various platforms. You can run it on your desktop, your home server, your mobile phone. In the workshop, we will focus on using Reticulum on three scales: (1) as a Bluetooth network for mobile phones messaging in small groups; (2) building some standalone nodes, based on a low power ARM board, that you we can deploy around Amsterdam to build out an autonomous communication infrastructure; (3) and we will also look into connecting cities with more long-range radio links.
Operating the network stack on various scales is possible because it can run on top of different transport layers. It can run on normal IPv4 networks. However, for us the interesting part is that it also runs on high latency, low bandwidth radio links. These can be Internet of Things networks like LoRa, Bluetooth networks made of mobile phones, WiFi access points or packet radio systems using cheap handheld VHF radios. (One such radio is the infamous programmable Baofeng UV-5R.)
We will look at some applications that were build on top of the Reticulum communication protocol stack. There is a simple graphical chat application called Meshchat that can be run locally on your computer. There is also a BBS style forum implementation, called NomadNet that also works over the terminal on servers. Finally, there is a user-friendly Android mobile phone app called Columba. The current services include text, photo, voice and video messaging – as well as audio calls and publishing website-like content called “mu sites” in the “micron format”. No prior experience is needed, but you might benefit from looking into the Reticulum Manual.
The March workshop is hosted by Internet Archive Europe and facilitated by the critical infrastructure lab.
The next (April 2026) workshop will be in Den Haag, hosted by the Anarchist Library Opstand.
# workshop How to Use a Local Small Language Model in Your Research without Losing Your Mind March 2026
Do you want to use a local GenAI on your laptop or PC for your research? Small language models (SLM) are compact alternatives to large language models, and they are ideal for handling specific tasks on your local devices. In this hands-on workshop, Maxigas (critical infrastructure lab), Jenny Chan, Dmitry Kuznetsov (critical infrastructure lab) and Annette Markham (Media and Culture Studies) will show and teach you how to install and use SLMs for your research.
What could you use SLM for? Some researchers want to organise and sift through years of data they’ve been collecting on their own device, maybe to link different research projects together. Other researchers might want to automate part of their workflow. Research institutes or project managers might want to standardise templates and automate research-related tasks. Still others might want to play around with AI, but want to keep the data local, to avoid sharing data through large corporate entities, or to better control what data is being processed by AI.
What to expect
The goal of finding, installing, and effectively using a SLM is wise, if you want to use it in research, but it is massively difficult to achieve in practice. This workshop therefore provides a communal space where we share knowledge. The workshop facilitators will walk participants through some of the steps involved, discuss the benefits and challenges, and then present and demonstrate a physical SLM set-up we have developed. Participants can then connect to this SLM online or offline to test it out.
# workshop Building and imagining people’s AI infrastructures via Mud batteries December 2025
At ThingsCon Fieke Jansen, Kars Alfrink, and Sunjoo Lee will be holding a workshop on ‘Building and imagining people’s AI infrastructures via Mud batteries’. December 12th
Find out more: https://thingscon.org/events/things-2025/program#workshops
# workshop Hands-on sessions at the critical infrastructure lab November 2025
The afternoon is organised as a work session where participants are invited to collaborate and hack on experimental projects at the critical infrastructure lab, ranging from programming through electronics and software defined radio. We start with an overview of experiments at various stages of completion, discuss their heuristic, critical and constructive potentials and possible development directions. Self-selected work groups then spend time improving the projects, take notes in a shared document and report back towards the end of the session. No technical skills are necessary, only motivation to look under the hood, and all kinds of soft and hard skills are welcome.
- 5G network (software defined radio / software defined networks / telecommunications)
- Mapping the electro-magnetic spectrum (software defined radio / data visualisation)
- Moonshot messaging (software defined radio / physics / protocols)
- Mud battery monitoring (gardening / electronics / programming / data visualisation)
- Organic data centre (mud batteries / embedded development / networking)
- Power consumption measurements (physics / electronics / data visualisation)
- Publication pipeline (programming / style sheets / automation)
- Reticulum community network (embedded microcontrollers / mobile development / packet radio)
- Telecommunications standards research (machine learning / data analysis / standardisation)
- Alternative option: Qiudanz Technique workshop with txiemonks
(see https://compudanzas.net/qiudanz_technique.html)
# workshop Resisting deregulation of data centers in Europe: tactics and action September 2025
As software development is increasingly going cloud-native and the lore of AI efficiency gains are driving demand for computational power, data centers are a new frontier of environmental destruction and democratic deficit. While Big Tech companies acquire massive server capacity and energy resources, communities face the consequences: depleted water supplies, overwhelmed electrical grids, and degraded air quality. This expansion occurs alongside a coordinated deregulatory assault that strips away environmental protections under the guise of “competitiveness” and “innovation.”
Our workshop confronts this crisis head-on, examining how data center proliferation requires resilience and resistance against deregulation and for environmental justice. We will dissect the mechanisms through which tech giants circumvent environmental oversight, exploit regulatory gaps, and capture policymaking processes.
This begs the questions: what do we need all this computing for? At what cost are we subsidizing Big Tech? How can we keep our computing infrastructure within planetary boundaries?
The session will build on last year’s session “down with datacenters” [1] to explore three themes, what is a public interest policy agenda, how can we achieve the urgent need for transparency in European data infrastructure, and how to connect local resistance across Europe. The promise of cloud compute driven prosperity and competition masks a system that privatizes profits while socializing environmental and social costs. Current opacity allows corporations to hoard capacity while communities remain uninformed about local environmental impacts. We will examine proposals for mandatory disclosure of data center energy consumption, cooling water usage, and capacity allocation to Big Tech versus public services. This transparency framework represents a crucial tool for democratic accountability and environmental protection.
The panel will map concrete resistance strategies, from grassroots organizing against data center siting to policy advocacy for stronger environmental standards. We will map successful community campaigns that have challenged data center expansion and extract lessons for broader application. Our discussion will connect local environmental justice struggles to systemic questions about digital infrastructure governance and the right to a healthy environment.
[1] https://www.criticalinfralab.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/CIL007.pdf
Speakers / facilitators
- Max Schulze (SME) – Leitmotiv speaker / facilitator
- Max van Thun (Civil Society) – Technology policy advocate focusing on Big Tech accountability and infrastructure transparency Open Markets Institute speaker / facilitator
- One of the authors of the joint statement ‘Within Bounds: Limiting AI’s environmental impact’, this will either be Maya Richman (Green Screen), Jill McArdle (Beyond Fossil Fuels), or Fieke Jansen (Academia critical infrastructure lab) speaker / facilitator
- Corinne Cath (civil society) – moderator / facilitator
# workshop Workshop on Quantum Standardization September 2025
# workshop Newsletter July 2025
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# workshop Data Walk Workshop May 2025
May 12-13, 2025 at Utrecht
The purpose of the two day workshop is to bring together scholars and artists who have each engaged in developing data walks or similar projects, in order for them to reflect on the phenomena of data walks as a methodological approach to data power and critical infrastructure studies. The two day workshop will have space and time to explore the city of Utrecht, engage with like minded participants, and conduct a collective experiment in data walking resulting in a report/fanzine. The first day is dedicated to getting to know each other and exchanging perspectives in “show and tell” style presentations of prior work and the state of the art. The second day is for devising and conducting a collective experiment in data walk as a method. After the walk we discuss the experiment and document it in the form of a report/fanzine, with the help of facilitators in spontaneous experimental publishing.
The workshop is organised by the critical infrastructure lab, Institutions for Open Societies’ Open Cities research platform and the Data School, with [urban interfaces] at Utrecht University.
# workshop Reflections on Europe Day – interview with Niels ten Oever May 2025
‘Unequal societies will produce technologies that will reproduce inequalities’
Why do we give creative tasks to a technology that is statistically trained to give you the most mediocre answer? This question, posed by Dr. Niels ten Oever, one of the leaders of the ACES Theme Group Tech, Power, and Policy, sets the tone for a wide-ranging and critical conversation about Europe’s technological trajectory. To mark Europe Day on May 9th, ACES spoke with him about the Europe’s digital challenges the politics of infrastructure, and the values at stake in the continent’s technological future.
Read the entire interview here.
# workshop Operationalizing Values in Dutch Digital Infrastructure February 2025
Join the Sustainable Digital Infrastructure Alliance for their upcoming event on operationalizing values in Dutch digital infrastructure. Building on our successful first get-to-together, we’re bringing together providers and purchasers to showcase real progress in implementing sustainability, transparency, and local impact in the digital infrastructure market.
Through debates, an interactive workshop and case studies, you’ll gain practical insights from market leaders who are already benefiting from this shift. Whether you’re a regional provider looking to gain a competitive edge or a purchaser wanting to shape a more sustainable market, this event offers concrete steps to transform your organization.
Don’t miss this opportunity to be part of a growing community that’s actively reshaping the digital infrastructure landscape in the Netherlands. Together, we’ll explore how transparency, sustainability, and local impact can become foundational market values.
We are organizing this event in collaboration with the critical infrastructure lab.
Date: February 25th
Time: 13.45 – 18.00
Registration required
# workshop Rethinking Data Centers in the Age of Scarcity, Humanities Labs, Amsterdam November 2024
Interested in joining the workshop – email fieke@criticalinfralab.net
Data centres are a visible and at times contested infrastructure in the Netherlands. Local protests, such as in Zeewolde, have spotlighted the tension between the growing demand for data centres, negative public sentiment, and the broader concern that society is running up against planetary boundaries. In the sustainable and just infrastructure research project we explored this tension by asking the data centre ecosystem to identify the environmental harms associated with this infrastructure, current sustainability efforts, and things that need to be included in a policy if we rethink data centre governance in the age of scarcity.
In the workshop, we will bring together different experts to discuss, explore, hack, and deepen the ideas and solutions that emerged during our research. For example. prioritisation rather than facilitating the mushrooming of digital infrastructures. This raises questions about on ‘What grounds do we prioritise?’, ‘How much infrastructure do we need?’, ‘What are the consequences of prioritisation?’. Or demands for an industrial policy that invests in, supports, and promotes a just and sustainable future internet. This raises questions on ‘What is sustainable and just?’, ‘Who decides?’, ‘Do we continue to invest in traditional silicon computing or is it the role of the state to dream big and differently?’ and ‘What are the opportunities and consequences of dreaming big?’.
Interested in joining the workshop – email fieke@criticalinfralab.net
Date & time: November 14th, 2024, 13:00 -18:00
Location Bushuis/Oost-Indisch Huis
# event Talk “Geographical” at Expanded Publishing Fest #2 – Space-in / Space-out, OT301, Amsterdam April 2024
Our internet-connected devices hold an unprecedented power to multiply us into a manifold of realities. The conventional way to conceptualize this is segregational – we “space-out” and we’re in cyberspace. However, as Heidegger noticed, one of the essential spatial practices of living beings is coming-into-nearness: “spacing-in”. Adding Lefebvre, the space that we space-out and space-in is a social product: not simply an element or sphere within which the social operates, but rather the expression of it. It’s a multitude of connections, flows of communication and capital, conditioned by politics and economic relationships, defined by class struggles, represented by those in power, and lived by those who are subject to that power. The complex composite of ontologies that are unified within the internet are territories where cables and devices are juxtaposed with class struggle, virtual internet protocols, geopolitics, and human cognition. The escapist “spacing-out” is only one part of the picture. Let’s space-in.
More info on OT301 website here
# workshop Digital Materialities and Infrastructural Futures in Smart Cities: hands-on research day November 2023
Hands-on research day about smart cities with Maxigas from the critical infrastructure lab for qualitative and quantitative researchers. Featuring datasets on programmable infrastructures such as 5G and its implementation in the OpenRAN software/hardware project. Discuss and analyse how infrastructural ideologies materialise in code bases, critique and propose alternative infrastructural futures!
Feel free to drop by any time.
friday 24 november 2023, 12:00 – 16:00
deakin downtown, melbourne, australia
# workshop Workshop on international standard-setting for the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Interior Affairs, and Economic Affairs and Climate September 2023
# workshop Hack Smart Cities August 2023
Session at the Chaos Communication Camp
# workshop infrastructural imaginaries workshop – montenegro July 2023
# event Standards, Protocols, Ecosystem roundtable June 2023
Round table discussion organised by Open Future and the critical infrastructure lab at the university of amsterdam, department of media, bringing together experts from the academia, civil society and industry
# workshop green screen climate justice and digital rights workshop – costa rica June 2023
# workshop digital green society – serbia May 2023
THE GREEN/DIGITAL/SOCIETY is a conference that gathers key actors who discuss the ecology, technology, human rights and policy in europe. see more: digital green society
# workshop giganet’s workshop on internet standard setting research methods January 2023
This workshop showcases the broad range of research methods used by Internet governance scholars from multiple disciplines to study Internet standard-setting bodies, such as the IETF, IEEE, W3C, WHATWG, 3GPP, ITU-T, ITU-R. more information and recording: https://www.giga-net.org/12-january-2022-giganets-workshop-on-internet-standard-setting-research-methods/
# workshop show me the numbers: workshop on analyzing ietf data (aid) November 2021
This workshop aims to enable engineers and researchers alike to mine the IETF’s data sources in order to explore trends through the analysis of IETF data, such as email archives, I-Ds, RFCs, and the datatracker. This work can be used to derive insights into the inner workings of the process of standardization, participation, and governance. This workshop aims to bring together people who have already analyzed IETF data, those who are interested in the analysis of IETF data, and those who are interested in the results of such analysis as input for improvement of the IETF’s work. Read more: https://www.iab.org/activities/workshops/aid/