SDS Server revives early web ideals, hosting handmade sites on grassroots infrastructure to empower communities, resist corporate platforms, and reclaim digital autonomy.
The SDS Server revitalizes the ethos of early internet communities by hosting and nurturing handmade, participant-driven websites. Inspired by the webrings, directories, and cybercafes of the early web, the server provides a space for artists, hackers, and writers to craft and share digital works. Hosted on a Raspberry Pi in the organizer’s living room, this community-driven infrastructure challenges the centralized, corporate web, embodying ideals of accessibility, autonomy, and collaborative resource-sharing.Rooted in a rich tradition of trans and queer digital innovation, SDS Server draws parallels to pioneering efforts like GeoCities and JoAnn Roberts’ “Community Center,” which empowered marginalized voices to build online spaces. This project bridges historical practices with modern critical tech theories, channeling the "handmade web" philosophy: coding by hand, embracing imperfection, and resisting the polished confines of corporate platforms.
Technologically, the SDS Server operates as a feminist infrastructure, hosting sites on a decentralized, user-maintained system. Drawing from principles of feminist server culture, it prioritizes care, transparency, and collective ownership over profit-driven algorithms. This grassroots hosting mimics physical community spaces—rough around the edges yet brimming with opportunity and interaction.
Designing for trans autonomy on the moderated web, the SDS Server critiques and reclaims digital spaces through creative resistance. It echoes cybercafes and local print shops as hubs for public pedagogy and resource-sharing, challenging the hyper-regulated landscapes of today’s internet. By empowering participants to become their own webmasters, SDS Server revives the radical potential of the early internet, proving that communities can craft their own futures by rewriting the rules of connection.
This server is not just infrastructure—it is an invitation to reclaim the web as a collaborative, handmade, and liberatory space.
This server was made for Solidarity Infrastructures at the School for Poetic Computation in 2024, taught by Alice Yuan Zhang, Meghna Mahadevan and Oren Robinson.
Strike Design Studio offers frank consultancy and striking solutions for IRL and URLS. Designing brands, websites, and printed matter.