A HOT MESH: COMPOSTING THE INTERNET
Martin Rodriguez Jr.
2026 Summer Residency
ABOUT THE PROJECT
Energy and information are essential public resources. They shape how people communicate, access support, share knowledge, and participate in society. Yet both remain unevenly distributed, expensive, and controlled by private companies, government policies, surveillance, and systems that profit from public participation. Although the internet is often imagined as limitless, immediate, and always available, it depends on physical infrastructure, continuous energy, extracted materials, human labor, and ongoing maintenance. These systems are also architectural: where they are built, how they are powered, and who controls them determine which communities remain connected and which are left out.
Before arriving on Governors Island, my proposal began with two questions: What would the internet look like as a physical object, and how could it serve the public in a more playful and communal way? My work explores architecture and technology as cultural and public interfaces rather than neutral tools. I am interested in changing how people see, interact with, and participate in the systems around them. By making technology’s materials, limits, labor, and energy visible, it becomes possible to question how these systems operate and imagine how they might function differently.
A HOT MESH: COMPOSTING THE INTERNET responds by bringing together compost-generated electricity, an offline local network, recorded sound, and collective maintenance. Compost batteries harvest and store small amounts of energy produced as microorganisms break down organic matter. When a visitor interacts with the local network, that stored energy briefly powers a red LED. This small exchange makes an otherwise invisible relationship tangible: biological activity produces energy, human interaction releases it, and neither system can function without care.
Before arriving on Governors Island, my proposal began with two questions: What would the internet look like as a physical object, and how could it serve the public in a more playful and communal way? My work explores architecture and technology as cultural and public interfaces rather than neutral tools. I am interested in changing how people see, interact with, and participate in the systems around them. By making technology’s materials, limits, labor, and energy visible, it becomes possible to question how these systems operate and imagine how they might function differently.
A HOT MESH: COMPOSTING THE INTERNET responds by bringing together compost-generated electricity, an offline local network, recorded sound, and collective maintenance. Compost batteries harvest and store small amounts of energy produced as microorganisms break down organic matter. When a visitor interacts with the local network, that stored energy briefly powers a red LED. This small exchange makes an otherwise invisible relationship tangible: biological activity produces energy, human interaction releases it, and neither system can function without care.
MARTIN RODRIGUEZ JR. ON PROCESS AND HIS EXPERIENCE AS A FELLOW:
“The project developed through many forms during my residency. The IPA Block House location on Governors Island has introduced me to an ecosystem of nonprofit organizations and people serving the public through art, gardening, historical education, and composting. Their work revealed the enormous amount of collective labor required to sustain the island. Two conditions immediately caught my attention. The first was the spotted internet signal. Though the island has multiple extenders that amplifies the wifi, it provides a limitation for consistent access to the web. Although disconnection could be frustrating, it also created opportunities to remain present, form memories, and spend time with others. The second question was how clean the island is. Where does all the island’s waste go, and who is responsible for maintaining these systems and the quality of the resources they provide?
These questions first led me to EarthMatter, a nonprofit that transforms Governors Island’s organic waste into compost. Volunteering there allowed me to understand how compost is made, monitored, moved, and maintained. I also learned about the vulnerability of nonprofit organizations working on temporary sites, where relocation and new construction can disrupt years of community knowledge and labor. With EarthMatter’s time, knowledge, and donation of compost, I built multiple compost batteries, recorded their energy output, and tested how their limited power could be collected, stored, and distributed. During a public workshop, participants constructed and tested their own batteries while imagining how compost energy might support future low-tech devices. Compost is alive. It produces sound through decomposition and through the actions of people turning, feeding, moving, and caring for it. Recording these sounds makes human labor part of the project’s data and recognizes maintenance as an active form of learning.
I also worked with another nonprofit - Community Tech NY, based in Brooklyn, New York. I learned to build an offline server using low-tech equipment they developed called a Portable Network Kit. Unlike the global internet, this network is local, offline, and proximity-based. Its resources can only be accessed within the area reached by its antenna, making it useful in places where the global internet is unavailable or during an outage. The server can store local histories, community archives, composting instructions, and information contributed by the people it serves. Maintaining it requires communicating with neighbors, passing down knowledge, caring for its equipment, and keeping its content useful and responsive to its location. It became the community’s internet. Learning to code and connecting a compost-powered LED to the local network brought the biological and digital systems together.
This project could not have become what it is without Governors Island and the residency. My cohort, the IPA team, Community Tech NY, Earth Matter, workshop participants, and the island community all became part of the work. Lastly, infrastructure does not sustain a community by itself; a community sustains its infrastructure. Without that collective care, everything becomes a hot mess.”
These questions first led me to EarthMatter, a nonprofit that transforms Governors Island’s organic waste into compost. Volunteering there allowed me to understand how compost is made, monitored, moved, and maintained. I also learned about the vulnerability of nonprofit organizations working on temporary sites, where relocation and new construction can disrupt years of community knowledge and labor. With EarthMatter’s time, knowledge, and donation of compost, I built multiple compost batteries, recorded their energy output, and tested how their limited power could be collected, stored, and distributed. During a public workshop, participants constructed and tested their own batteries while imagining how compost energy might support future low-tech devices. Compost is alive. It produces sound through decomposition and through the actions of people turning, feeding, moving, and caring for it. Recording these sounds makes human labor part of the project’s data and recognizes maintenance as an active form of learning.
I also worked with another nonprofit - Community Tech NY, based in Brooklyn, New York. I learned to build an offline server using low-tech equipment they developed called a Portable Network Kit. Unlike the global internet, this network is local, offline, and proximity-based. Its resources can only be accessed within the area reached by its antenna, making it useful in places where the global internet is unavailable or during an outage. The server can store local histories, community archives, composting instructions, and information contributed by the people it serves. Maintaining it requires communicating with neighbors, passing down knowledge, caring for its equipment, and keeping its content useful and responsive to its location. It became the community’s internet. Learning to code and connecting a compost-powered LED to the local network brought the biological and digital systems together.
This project could not have become what it is without Governors Island and the residency. My cohort, the IPA team, Community Tech NY, Earth Matter, workshop participants, and the island community all became part of the work. Lastly, infrastructure does not sustain a community by itself; a community sustains its infrastructure. Without that collective care, everything becomes a hot mess.”
COLLABORATORS/SUPPORT
EarthMatter
CommunityTechNY
University of Michigan - Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning
Taubman Visualization Lab Research/Residency Grant
Stock-A-Studio
Beam Center
Earl Carlson (KIKIKI)
CommunityTechNY
University of Michigan - Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning
Taubman Visualization Lab Research/Residency Grant
Stock-A-Studio
Beam Center
Earl Carlson (KIKIKI)
People
