░░░░░░ Compost Computer:
More-Than-Human Design
Through Critical Climate Computing

“[…] soil relationalities can be read most visibly for how they foster a different relation of care, one susceptible to alter the linear nature of future-oriented technoscientific, productionist extraction in anthropocentric timescapes.”
(Bellacasa, 2017:106)

The Compost Computer is a collaborative project seeking to advance creative practice exploring low-carbon computation, permacomputing, and green-transition technologies. In partnership with FutureEverything and Manchester-based urban growing cooperatives Sow the City and MUD, the project produced a proof-of-concept webserver powered entirely by microbial fuel cells. Moving beyond conventional renewable energy approaches, the project explored whether computational infrastructure could be directly integrated into ecological cycles, powered by compost from Manchester Urban Digger's Platt Fields urban garden.

The biomatter server represents a proof-of-concept that challenges assumptions about digital infrastructure's separation from natural systems. By harnessing microbial fuel cell technology, the server draws power from the bio-electrochemical processes occurring in decomposing organic matter, creating a tangible connection between the digital realm and ecological cycles. This approach questions the extractive relationship between computation and the environment.

The operational parameters of the system reflect the slow, rhythmic nature of minimal and situated permacomputing that were the basis for this research. This ‘situated laboratory’ demonstrates a move away from "always-on" server infrastructure toward a model that respects the temporal and material constraints of the environment, diverting from the technocapitalist reliance on more processing and electricity power. In this project, the often overlooked aspects of energy generation from food and garden waste became the primary point of attention in which the software was based upon – since minor differences in voltage and amperage readings informed how much time the server would be able to sustain itself per charging cycle, and how much data it would be able to serve in the form of a website.

The project's outcomes extend beyond a single implementation. We have developed an open-access toolkit to enable people to replicate the biomatter server approach. By choosing a website—arguably the most ubiquitous digital artifact—as the intervention site, the project demonstrates that radical sustainability can have everyday applications and move beyond big urban centres or purposedly-made climatized data centres. This project ultimately argues that addressing computation's climate impact requires more than efficiency improvements; it demands reconceptualising the relationship between digital infrastructures and ecological systems, and how working within constraints could open, rather than limit, which alternative futures are possible for computational researchers and artists willing to move away from the violent, resource-depleting and unsustainable practices that became normalized and encouraged within digital arts and design.

Full Credits:
Project Lead and Management – Wesley Goatley and Eva Verhoeven
Project concept - Mariana Marangoni, Shinji Toya, and FutureEverything
Project ideation and research –Mariana Marangoni and Shinji Toya
Web design – Mariana Marangoni and Alistair McCloymont
Back-end server architecture lead – Mariana Marangoni
MFC power system and physical computing lead – Shinji Toya

Technical support and consultation:
Felix Loftus, Karsten Goodwin – Specialist Technicians, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, Physical Computing Lab
Agnes Cameron - Specialist Technician, Creative Computing Institute
Alistair McClymont and Kevin Lee - additional web development

This project was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council through a UK Research & Innovation grant, through the Design Museum's Future Observatory programme.

Events and public appearances:

Composting Futures - MUD (Platt Fields Market Garden, Manchester), September 2025

Piksel Festival, Bergen NO, November 2025

Fiber Reassemble Lab: (De)Growing Infrastructures Panel, Amsterdam NL, November 2025