Projects · Lab
Undurable
A lab dedicated to exploring the Buddhist concept of impermanence as applied to technology.
Our relationship with machines is distorted by an eternity bias: the illusion that data, memory and computing power are eternal and infinite. We save everything, reread little, forget nothing. But a mind that cannot forget stops distinguishing, connecting and, in the end, thinking.
Undurable starts from the opposite premise: awareness of the end breeds care. We choose what to keep because we cannot keep everything, and in that choice, in limits, in error and in forgetting, lies the human side of technology.
Undurable projects use simulated worlds and experimental software to impose limits of space and time on digital environments, observe the consequences, and give the human mind back its role as the main device for preserving and passing on knowledge.
De-databasing
Applications that do without a database, or keep persistent memory to a bare minimum.
Data fading
Data doesn't stay forever: it fades over time, and what matters is what you choose to keep.
Controlled forgetting
Forgetting as a feature, not a failure: a way back to learning, understanding, remembering and sharing.