Workshop: Permacomputing shareparty

Workshop servidor de ficheiros portátil // Portable file server workshop, Ana Meisel

[English below]

Permacomputing shareparty: workshop servidor de ficheiros portátil Ana Meisel

Privacy, ecology, local economy, digital sovereignty for artists, educators, activists, makers

Thursday, 4 June 2026 11–16h (4 hours excluding lunch break) Almada Velha

Workshop will be led in English

Big Tech is dimming cultural distribution. In the beginning of the information age, there were propositions that the internet would act as a driving force for the democratisation of knowledge production and access. These hopes have since been squandered in the pursuit of profit. Tech companies scrape articles, blogs, and threads for AI training and lock them behind paywalls for the public. We navigate the internet on large social media platforms in digital walled gardens, but this is not all there is...

For the past couple of decades, shadow libraries and unrestricted archiving have played a role in the battle for free and open access. This workshop is designed to explore the principles and practical skills that could form the basis of personal archiving and peer-to-peer sharing to reclaim hopes that the internet could democratise art, now more important than ever. By existing outside of institutional constraints, self-hosted archiving provides an opportunity to think radically and publicly about how art and information can work to promote open and free access.

This is a practical workshop on archiving, peer-to-peer filesharing, and digital sovereignty which will utilise copyparty – a tool that turns your device into a file server with resumable uploads/downloads using any web browser.

We will then host this file-sharing system on remote servers via our browsers. The aim is to equip non-technical people with greater technical literacy in this area, so please don’t be shy if this sounds like you!

By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to use copyparty on a remote server to host and share personal archives such as zines, fan art, open-source music and public domain films, as well as community-driven libraries including local artists, indie games and educational materials.

Participants are required to bring a computer capable of running Python 2 or 3.

No technical skills required Duration: 4 hours Venue: Almada Velha (full address after inscription)

Price: €20*

*If the cost presents a difficulty, please email us and we will try to accommodate you.

Ana Meisel is a Polish-German web developer and artist based in London, UK. Her focus is on historically-informed computing through the lens of critical theory, ecological responsibility, whole-systems thinking, and community organising.

She is part of Superkilogirls, a collective that looks at feminist critiques of computing and automation, runs External Pages, an internet art gallery and co-organises London’s Permacomputing Club.

Her work has been showcased in diverse contexts like the Cyberfeminism Index and San Jose Museum of Art. Her interests include tech resistance movements, DIY tech culture, and the Eastern Bloc.

Related: Ana Meisel will present Permacomputing: small entrances to a wide collective, at Human Entities public talks, 2 June 2026, 6.30pm, free entry.

Organized by CADA

CADA is funded by: República Portuguesa – Cultura, Juventude e Desporto / Direção-Geral das Artes