Installation at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, as part of the exhibition "Memory Is a Strange Bell", 2026.
Local Host :// is an ongoing project that uses self-hosted servers as a form of world-building. It frames local networks as a resilient infrastructure, one sustained by the commons and collectivity rather than resource extraction. The installation comprises three interconnected servers housed in custom 3D-printed enclosures, alongside several integrated components: an interactive chatbot trained on PDFs and care protocols for (gendered) conditions (fibromyalgia, MCAS, endometriosis, CFS, among others); an archive of anti-AI movements (including campaigns against data centers and the “Clippy” movement, guides for hacking the Doctolib platform); and a puppet-house server that doubles as a stage for a performance of the same name.
Networked locally, the servers allow the chatbot to interface with all three units via small attached displays. Periodically, alongside healing recipes, the chatbot outputs excerpts from Health Communism (2025).
Inspired by the DIY home-server culture and aesthetics, the puppet performance is based on a dialogue between three different LLM characters that meet in a virtual space named Serververse and exchange about their inner workings and secrets.
