2025-08-10 –, Workshop Giotto
Language: English
<cite>Knitting Our Internet</cite> is an interactive journey through the history of the Internet, and a collective rethinking of its future.
The activity consists of a face-to-face workshop, providing tangible and simple examples about how the Internet works, simultaneously questioning the very essence of today’s mainstream social networks. Its main purpose is to expose the critical limits of surveillance capitalism, centralization, and its environmental impact.
Using my grandma’s yarn, we’ll simulate a centralized network, clearly and practically exposing the intrinsic limits and issues of any centralized infrastructure.
After pinpointing these problems, we’ll time-travel to the beginnings of the Internet, discovering that decentralization was actually at its heart. We will travel through the history of the Internet and of the Web by reading quotes and observing pictures, together. We’ll see how the problem of social media “enshittification” and the criticalities of big tech do not arise at all from a technical issue, but it is all a social, political, and economical matter.
Therefore, we’ll dive into the concept of “Surveillance Capitalism” unmasking the hidden dynamics of the digital technology industry, from data harvesting to emotional manipulation.
How do we take Our Internet back? How can we make it truly decentralized again? The workshop ends with the simulation of a decentralized network among the participants, still using my grandma’s yarn. We will have uncovered how decentralization is key not only to address social media issues, but it’s a broader political structure we should be using as reference in pursuing brighter and more human perspectives.
Full workshop in Knitting Our Internet’s Weaver Kit
Tommaso “Tommi” Marmo is an independent researcher, activist, artist, and community weaver who focuses on political technology, digital rights awareness, and data degrowth.
Tommi’s mission is to create bridges and connections, intertwining stories and experiences through inter-disciplinary activities that explore the most diverse topics. His work spans several fronts, and he committed to different fights over time.
As a teenager, he was a speaker and chief editor at Radioimmaginaria. In 2019, he co-founded a local chapter of LIBERA, an Italian network of organizations fighting mafia through cultural and educational endeavours. In 2020, he invented and founded Scambi, the Festival of Paneurethic workshops, of which he is now the president. In 2023 he graduated summa cum laude in Philosophy, International Studies, and Economics with a thesis titled <cite>Computer Sciences Are Social Sciences. The workshop series Knitting Our Internet</cite> was born out of the research for his thesis, his main project to date.
Being a relentless enthusiastic and curious person, Tommi also worked with many and various organizations, including the DWeb Community, the Free Software Foundation Europe, Village One and Giffoni Film Festival. He was a scout chief, and he is a member of the Association of Internet Researchers, the Coalition for Independent Technology Research, Banca Etica, and Club Tenco. He is the creator and administrator of Pan, a Fediverse instance.
If there is any time left, or in case he can find some, Tommi contributes to Free Software projects, he plays table-top role-playing games (TTRPGs), he cycles and he couchsurfs around the planet.