Some assembly required („• ֊ •„)੭🛠️
Right now, somewhere on your FYP, a woman is soldering a fully functional computer into a Hello Kitty makeup case. She's not alone. Over the past year, hand-built cyberdecks have gone from niche hacker curiosity to a whole genre of cute, chaotic, DIY machines, made from mermaid-shell Raspberry Pis, beaded cases, and thrifted plastic, mostly by women teaching each other to build online. The term itself comes from William Gibson's 1984 novel Neuromancer, back when the was imagined as a lone man in a dark room. The 2026 version is pink, bedazzled, and shared freely in tutorials.
The appeal isn't only aesthetic. Most of the devices we actually use are essentially black boxes: hermetically sealed, quietly extractive, and updated with AI features and surveillance nobody asked for. A cyberdeck is the opposite: something you can crack open, understand, break, and fix. And this instinct, to take the tools back into your own hands, is having its moment in the sun beyond the crafting corner of the internet. The people behind the IndieWeb just rewrote their 2026 manifesto to drop the lone-webmaster fantasy in favour of hosting for each other and publishing together. Writer Marta Ceccarelli, in NERO, describes the alternative to the platform as a patchwork, stitched by many hands rather than owned by one company. Even the archives are going DIY: tired of watching accounts get shadow-banned or deleted overnight, artists are building their own.
Which is exactly what we're up to this September. ٩(ˊᗜˋ*)و On 12 September we’re hosting an event about building your own living archive, so that when a platform decides your story doesn't fit, your story doesn't vanish with it. And on 26 September we’ll walk you through soldering your own personalised little local chat device that runs on a local mesh network with no wifi, no internet, and no Big Tech in the middle. No coding experience needed for either. Unfortunately, this workshop is already sold out. As there has been so much interest, we have decided to organise another mesh-berry workshop on 7 November, for which tickets are (still) available.
It all ties back to our year theme, What Was I Looking At Again? We've spent the year on what the feed does to our attention. This autumn we're asking the other half: what we might do to reclaim it.
In other news, we’ve been soft-launching our Signal community group – still in the works. You can keep tabs by becoming a member. ( • ̀ω•́ )✧📲
Solder on,
◌◌◌ The Hmm ◌◌◌
🗄️ 12 September – Workshop: Build your own archive
Over the past few years, censorship, shadow-banning, and quiet account deletions have become an ordinary hazard on platforms like Instagram, and the artists, designers, and cultural organisations who built their whole public presence there are the ones left exposed. Echoes from Afar asks the obvious next question: what if you built the archive yourself, and kept authorship in your own hands?
In this hybrid workshop, Kexin Hong and neuroqueer technologist Yiyao Wei introduce Echoes from Afar, an open-source, living online archive built for Asian diasporic communities to narrate their own stories, on their own terms. The first half covers uploading and managing your own work on the platform; the second opens up the open-source workflow behind it, so you leave knowing how to build your own website or archive with free, accessible, no-code tools. No prior coding experience needed, and you don't need to be of Asian heritage to join.
Stuff you should know:
📅 Saturday 12 September 2026
🕗 14.00 – 16.00 CEST
📍 The Hmm's studio, NDSM-plein 125, Amsterdam + online
🎟 €12,50 regular / €9,50 students, onsite or online
🫐 26 September (sold out) & 7 November – Workshop: Build your own 'mesh-berry'
Hand-soldered cyberdecks are all over the internet right now, and they're cute. The improvised machines of cyberpunk fiction once belonged to a narrow, masculine idea of who gets to tinker and build. This year's version is made of mermaid-shell Raspberry Pis and Hello Kitty makeup cases, often by women and queer people teaching each other online. Against sealed, extractive consumer devices, a cyberdeck is something you hack together, personalise, and actually get to understand.
Guided by web developer and artist Heerko van der Kooij, you'll hand-solder your own 'mesh-berry' 🫐: a working chat device that runs on a local mesh network, no wifi, no internet, no Big Tech in the middle. The Hmm's Lilian Stolk goes into the aesthetic side, how and why to design a personal case for it. You'll walk away with a device you can actually use to chat with other mesh-berry owners nearby, and the skills to build one for a friend. No coding experience needed.
Stuff you should know:
📅 Saturday 26 September & 7 September
🕗 13.00 – 17.00 CEST
📍 The Hmm's studio, NDSM-plein 125, Amsterdam
🎟 The workshop on 26 September is sold out, but for the one on 7 November, tickets are still available. Tickets: €55 regular, €51,50 students (this is including €47,50 for hardware material)
Hmmterviewee of the month: Maria Mombers
You might already know this month's Hmmterviewee from our Make your own slobject workshops; Maria Mombers is a artist and designer whose work investigates the increasingly blurred boundary between lived experience and constructed realities, with a keen focus on the of attention and the influence of e-commerce in digital spaces.
Her latest project, You May Also Like, positions the slot machine as a blueprint for the relationship between humans and machines and explores the reward feedback loops that shape our society. Stylised as an infinite scroll, it invites you to step into the ‘machine zone’, a term used to describe the state of slot-machine gamblers who lose all sense of time and physical presence, fully absorbed in their game. You May Also Like is Maria’s graduation project from KABK and will soon be on display at GOGBOT Festival in Enschede.
How many browser tabs do you have open right now?
Atm 7, but today my open browser tabs have been varying between 3 and 25. I just came back from a two week vacation so it’s mostly catching up on work.
What's the most ridiculous rabbit hole you've ever fallen down on the internet?
Theme park haunted houses! I’ve never attended a Fright Night, but it happens quite often that I catch the flu in October, and being sick in bed comes with a lot of screen time. Around Halloween, my social media feed gets flooded with haunted house sneak peeks – each one with its own lore, characters, ratings, and dedicated fandom.
What do your own data traces get wrong about you, and what do they get uncomfortably right?
That I like AI slop content. I’m doing a lot of research into the slopification of the internet, so my timeline is constantly flooded with crap that I really dislike. But it also helps me keep up with what’s going on, so I guess it’s a never-ending cycle. One time, I was having an internal crisis, and while scrolling, I felt like my algorithm was reading my mind, which was pretty uncomfortable.
Have you ever changed how you speak because of the internet? How?
Probably, but I’ve been online for so long that I wouldn’t even know how I’d speak without it. But, I once heard someone say that I talk like a person with 4+ hours of screen time... 🫠
You can follow her on Instagram: @fomoforever. Discover more about her via her website.
Image by Susann Mielke from Pixabay
Hmm-ing in the wild
Come find us at the following events!
◯ 12 September - Experimental event: Echoes from Afar with Kexin Hong and Yiyao Wei @ The Hmm Studio
◯ 13 September – IMC weekendschool Amsterdam Noord with Maria Mombers and Elsbeth Hoefkens
◯ 19 September – Make your Slobject workshop @ Groninger Museumnacht
◯ 26 September – Experimental event: Build your own mesh-berry workshop with Heerko van der Kooij @ The Hmm Studio
Had a taste and want some more? The Hmm workshops are available to book here.
Activities in the digital field
◯ The Grant Desk – A free, hand-picked directory of paid open calls, fellowships and residencies for people working in digital media, AI, and technology, and society.
◯ Mesh Network Workshop – Post-X Society (27 August)
◯ ALTERITY by Jacco Gardner – MU Hybrid Art House (28 August–20 September)
◯ Call for abstracts – Politics of Machines conference (Deadline: 30 August)
◯ Open call for artworks – AIxDESIGN (Deadline: 31 August)
◯ Talk by K - Playing the Long Game: Art after AI and Extinction – MU Hybrid Art House (10 September)
◯ Exhibition – Ground Zero (11–14 September) જ⁀➴ Our own Sjef van Beers is part of it, and there is a crowdfunding campaign in support of all contributors.
◯ V2_ 45 years: Still Unstable (24–26 September)
◯ Open call for situated research residencies by Medialab Matadero (Deadline: 27 September)
We hope you enjoyed this editorial newsletter! Welcome back, and see you soon!
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