Crooked Remedies for Bullsh*t Innovation
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Posted: 4 August 2026
Crooked Remedies for Bullsh*t Innovation
This autumn, we host a 6-day Camp on Vernacular Technologies at Casa Cafausica, a large farmhouse with a surrounding five-acre park located on the border between San Cesario di Lecce and Cavallino in the region of Apulia (IT). In this camp, we propose vernacular technologies as an attitude that arises from a relationship with technology grounded in agency, self-sufficiency, problem-solving, and practicality. Think of the farmer fixing their own machines, creating their own production lines, coming up with non-existent machines for real-life problems, reusing and reforming what is at hand so it functions for what is needed. Technological skills in this attitude are often self-taught and not reliant on corporate infrastructures but instead rely on local community alliances and knowledge. Technology is not treated as a product, but as a tool that serves a specific purpose.
For the full call, make sure to download the PDF above!
Casa Cafausica is the headquarters of Fondazione Lac o Le Mon, an experimental centre for the arts, based on self-led education, led by artists Emilio Fantin, Luigi Negro, Giancarlo Norese, Cesare Pietroiusti and Luigi Presicce. In their activities, they always aim to bring together the language of knowledge production and artistic research with the place that participants are actually inhabiting.
During the camp, participants will produce interventions that take the Casa's context as a starting point: its architecture, the relationship between inside and outside spaces, the land it's located on, its limitations, its anti-technological attitude, and its water- and electricity self-sufficiency (through solar panels and its artesian well). These interventions can have many shapes and forms, for example: using the building, its spaces and knowledge for artistic interventions, developing tech rituals or installations attuned to the energy limits (e.g. using the data from the solar energy production), creating practices of attention to the landscape and its non-human inhabitants, exploring strategies to resist the cognitive overload of social media, etc. In this way, the camp is about rehearsing a life in which we actually have a different relationship with technology, one in which technology is not omnipresent but is consciously used in those areas where it adds value, whether practical or poetic.
We have the capacity to host 14-20 participants. In the weeks prior to the camp, we will organise two online sessions to: introduce and provide theoretical grounding in the notion of vernacular technologies; brainstorm possible interventions and identify the technical support and materials needed for them; get to know each other both personally and professionally; and forge possible collaborations.
Next to Casa Cafausica’s artists and the Baltan team, Carlo Gioia is part of the organisational team. Carlo is the co-founder of the Radura (IT) collective, a research and open-experimentation platform operating at the intersection of artistic practices, political ecologies, and emerging technologies in rural contexts. Carlo will bring expertise in working on technology-related projects in real-life rural communities.
For whom: The camp is intended for practitioners who, in their practice, work with, reflect on, or question the current extractivist and accelerationalist dynamics in the tech sector. During the camp, we will question these dynamics - based on the idea that technological progress is relentless and should feed on the inconsiderate extraction of resources, human and non-human ones - and explore how we could do technologies otherwise, inspired by a vernacular attitude. Participants may include academics in the humanities, researchers at technical universities, design and art researchers, writers, designers, artists, hackers, members of community-led initiatives, or anyone with a general interest in these topics, without necessarily having a (professional) practice in these.
Why Vernacular Technologies?
The term vernacular technologies takes inspiration from the practice of vernacular architecture: it encompasses architecture done outside any academic tradition, without the involvement of professional architects, that serves immediate, local needs, is constrained by the materials available in its particular region, and reflects local traditions and cultural practices. The term dates back to the end of the 19th century but was popularised by a 1964 exhibition at MoMA and a subsequent book, Architecture Without Architects, by architect Bernard Rudofsky, featuring black-and-white photographs of vernacular buildings around the world. In the book, Rudofsky kept the definition of vernacular quite open: he refers to it as “vernacular, anonymous, spontaneous, indigenous, rural”. In our camp, we want to borrow this term and its loose definition to try imagining (and thinking through-making) what technology without technologists, and rooted in a situated context, could be and mean. We will do that by observing and learning from local, indigenous, and everyday tools, techniques, and systems created by ordinary people to solve localised problems. Rather than relying on mass-produced solutions, they utilise locally sourced materials, traditional knowledge, and community-level engineering to meet specific practical needs. A rural object built for a specific purpose—be it a basket, a trap, or a work tool—can be found, due to its morphological and functional similarity, in many other places, even distant ones. This is because they are not the product of the genius of a single "designer," but rather archetypal responses to common needs. Those who make these tools do not hold the patent, but are temporary executors who draw on open-source and collective know-how shared by the community. Rural culture anticipated the concept of open source by centuries: it has always been based on knowledge born of doing and the need for free sharing to ensure collective survival.
Furthermore, these techniques, fixes, and tools are by nature sustainable; see, for example, traditional air-trapping or "free cooling" techniques used in regional architecture that regulate indoor temperatures without relying on electric air conditioning. If we could find ways to blend modern open-source technologies with ancient, context-specific knowledge, we would be able to develop open and decentralised innovations for energy-efficient solutions, for example. The interventions we aim to realise together with the participants intend to address the interweaving of past heritage and contemporary urgencies through hybrid technological and artisanal methodologies.
The approach is grounded in practices of repair, disassembly, reuse and technological disobedience found in rural culture that question the logic of contemporary and standardising technological design, through the transformation of what are perceived as obsolete tools and materials (remnants of a pre-industrial world and peasant culture) into assemblages with current DIY electronics that expand their original functions. In this practice, cultural memory shifts from passive conservation of pre-industrial techniques and solutions to active re-adaptation and remediation with electronics, sensors, and actuators. By doing this, we do not own these objects any more than those who built or used them before us did; we simply become the current custodians of a rural technology that, to survive, must be shared, "hacked", and put back into circulation, crystallising cultural memory as a dynamic knowledge that is handed down and reshaped across generations. Through this approach, we aim to highlight a vast reservoir of tacit and contextual knowledge, often invisible, which is innovation in its own right, crucial to the development and well-being of local communities.
What results from this process are objects with a weird aesthetics, chimeras of rural materials/tools/systems and electronics in which the tension between these seemingly incompatible worlds is rendered visible (see images from Radura and Carlo Gioia’s Folk Interfaces from which this approach is inspired). But it also reminds us of the aesthetics of jury-rigged solutions (or kludges, but more negatively connotated or accrocchio in Italian), meaning something built, fixed, or arranged quickly using whatever parts or tools are nearby because you do not have the right things for a real fix. This practice taps into the profile of the bricoleur, which we would also like to adopt as a guiding attitude for the camp. The concept originates with the French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, who introduced the term in The Savage Mind (1962) to describe a mode of creation that contrasts with that of the engineer. Whereas the engineer begins with a clearly defined problem, identifies the appropriate tools, and systematically develops a solution, the bricoleur works with the materials already available. Rather than relying on purpose-built resources, the bricoleur repurposes existing objects, remnants, and residual materials—originally intended for other functions—to construct something new. The bricoleur attitude is not that far from that of the farmer, who doesn’t differentiate between high-tech and low-tech solutions, as long as they are available and functional for the need at hand.
Adopting the posture of the bricoleur allows us to treat technology not as an autonomous, self-referential system, but as a site of negotiation, maintenance, and collective memory. This approach reclaims the right to alter, repurpose, and re-signify the technological landscape using the materials and knowledge at hand. Through this hands-on experimentation, the camp becomes a space to test how localised, improvised fixes and remedies can cultivate a practice of making that is at once deeply rooted in place, politically conscious, and built on shared inquiry, in which tools become conversational sites for doing and learning together.
Context
The area and the Casa Cafausica
The Casa Cafausica farmhouse is located between San Cesario di Lecce and Cavallino, two little towns in the Italian province of Lecce in the Apulia region of south-east Italy. It lies in the Cupa Valley, a portion of the Salento plain surrounding the capital city of Lecce, characterised by a large karst depression. It is located halfway between the Ionian and Adriatic Seas, about 20/30 km away. It is considered a fertile valley, a place chosen by the aristocracy since the 15th century as a holiday destination, with the consequent construction of numerous villas. It is populated by vineyards and olive groves, and vast countryside, as well as small and medium-sized residential towns.
The house spreads over 600 square metres over two floors (plus a cellar and two terraces), surrounded by approximately two hectares of land and a hortus conclusus with a citrus grove.
It comprises nine bedrooms, a very spacious kitchen, and five bathrooms, two of which are outside, and can accommodate 20–25 people. Since the Foundation took up residence there, only minimal refurbishment work has been carried out to create the new bathrooms, leaving the architectural layout identical to the original. Thanks to public funding, a philological restoration and reinstatement of the monumental ‘cucina economica’ (economic kitchen) – formerly used by a community of farmers – has also been carried out. The house is the result of an early 20th-century extension to a pre-existing farmhouse. The build quality is very high (Lecce stone, high vaulted ceilings, floors of antique stone slabs and, on the first floor, early 20th-century ‘cementine’ tiles). The bedrooms are on the upper floor, whilst the ground-floor rooms are used for communal activities (kitchen, screening room, workshop spaces, meeting room).
Casa Cafausica is currently – thanks to solar panels, an ancient hand-dug artesian well, and a constructed wetland system for sewage treatment – self-sufficient in electricity, water, and sewerage, and is therefore an extremely rare example of a self-sustaining historic building. This makes the venue ideal for training programmes that consistently prioritise ecological issues, low or zero environmental impact, and an understanding of and care for the site as fundamental elements of every training and creative-productive process that takes place there.
Also for our camp, the house can be seen as a brief for possible interventions that could apply vernacular technologies to specific areas of the house or issues which still need to be tackled, such as: reactivating the rainwater cistern, designing the acoustics of the spaces, increasing the air circulation, improving the visibility of the street entrance or monitoring the soil condition.
Local craftsmanship, techniques and materials
We have identified some local craftsmanship, techniques and materials that could be involved or be in conversation with for the participants’ interventions (part also of the camp excursions):
Leccese stone (pietra leccese) is a unique limestone from the Salento region of Puglia, Italy. Formed from ancient sea mud, it is very soft and easy to carve when first dug from the ground, but grows hard and turns a warm, honey colour over time. There are several craftsmen and artists (including one of the most famous, Maurizio Buttazzo, a few metres from the Casa) working with it in the area.
Papier-mâché: a popular craft material made from paper and rags mixed with a sticky binder like glue, starch, or flour paste and supported with a structure of metal wire. The technique is so prevalent in the area that it prompted Università del Salento and the Accademia di Belle Arti di Lecce to offer a first-level university master's degree titled The Art of Papier-Mâché between Tradition and New Technologies. It blends historic Salento craft traditions with digital design, material science, and modern restoration techniques.
Rural culture and agricultural tools: the area around the Casa counts 5 museums of rural culture and tools (in Italian Museo della Civiltà Contadina, that literally translates to Museum of Peasant Civilisation, highlighting the importance of this knowledge for this region).
Textile-making and weaving are really widely present in the territory. One of the most important places preserving this local craftsmanship is Fondazione Le Costantine, a non-profit cultural centre in Puglia, Italy, dedicated to women's empowerment, traditional craftsmanship, and biodynamic agriculture. Founded to lift rural women out of poverty, it preserves the ancient art of Salento hand-weaving with historic wooden looms, a practice that recently earned global recognition through a high-profile collaboration with Dior. Today, the foundation operates as a peaceful community hub near Otranto, combining professional textile training with sustainable organic farming.
Print: there’s a long-standing tradition of printing in the area and several museums (Museo della Stampa Città di Lecce) and type archives dedicated to old techniques
Approach and Structure of the Camp
The camp provides participants with an occasion to respond to the prompt of vernacular technologies through:
a situated context;
theoretical discussions, starting from the framework of this call and the positioning offered by the reference list included (see Reference List section below);
opportunity to translate the theoretical discussions into interventions that can be: inspired by the observations of rural or local tools, solutions and systems; connected to the Casa Cafausica and meant to stay there as part of the (artistic) interventions that already populate it; as extension of your already existing personal practice or research in the context or theoretical framework provided. Working on a project/intervention is not mandatory for participation in the camp;
curation, facilitation and personal coaching by Carlo Gioia, Lorenzo Gerbi and Marlou van der Cruijsen; contextualisation and support by Cesare Pietroiusti and Luigi Negro (see Facilitators and Contributors section below);
production guidance from local craftsmen, artists, and practitioners, selected based on participants' planned interventions (see Context section). We will visit their ateliers as part of the excursions in the program, but they will join us at the Casa for dedicated support;
technical guidance by Carlo Gioia and Radura;
documentation of the outcomes and presentation (tbc) at KORA - Contemporary Center (center for multidisciplinary research on the contemporary, Castrignano de’ Greci, Lecce);
We imagine these elements above organised in the following tentative timeline:
Online session #1 (3 hours, in the week of September 21st): introduction to provide theoretical grounding in the notion of vernacular technologies. Selected reading materials will be provided in advance to prepare for the session.
Online session #2 (3 hours, in the week of September 28th): collective brainstorm about possible interventions and collaborations among participants and materials and production/technical support needed.
Day 1 (Oct 7th): Arrival date. After all participants arrive and get settled, we use the remaining time of the day for contextualisation: an introduction, a tour of the house and possible areas of intervention, and getting to know each other; introductions to Radura practice by Carlo Gioia and to the artist collective Lu Cafausu by Cesare Pietroiusti and Luigi Negro.
Day 2 (Oct 8th): Morning: plenary moment for theoretical discussions or presentations by external contributors / Afternoon: time to work on interventions, personal and group coaching / Evening: free time.
Day 3 (Oct 9th): Excursion day: visiting local craftsmen, artists, museums and ateliers, Lecce and/or seaside.
Day 4 (Oct 10th): Working day: starting and ending the day with a plenary moment, during the day time to work on your intervention, possibility to discuss with facilitators and production guidance (either at the Casa or visiting their atelier).
Day 5 (Oct 11th): Morning and afternoon: last preparation for the presentations in the afternoon, documentation of the interventions / Evening: presentations of all the interventions at KORA - Contemporary Center (tbc)
Day 6 (Oct 12th): Breakfast together, wrap-up and possible next steps, departure.
Practical Info
Language: English
Dates of the camp and online sessions: 2 online pre-sessions in the second half of September; Camp: 7 (arrival date) - 12 (departure date) Oct.
Location: Casa Cafausica, via Cavallino 19 (S.P. 10), 73016 San Cesario di Lecce, Italy. More info on how to get there: https://lacolemon.org/info/.
Fee: Regular fee: 650 euro (ex. 21% VAT). Early Bird: 590 euro (ex. 21% VAT). The participation fee includes accommodation, transfers to/from Brindisi airport or Lecce station, and participation in the full programme with workshops, lectures, and excursions.
For those who want to join the collective meals, we will handle coordination and ask for €10 per person per day for groceries (this will be discussed in the online pre-sessions).
Registration: Registration is on a roll-in basis.
Step 1: Register via this PayPal Link: https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/W5RXETGG94WV4. You will be asked to fill in your name, e-mail, and invoice address, and you will be charged €50 ex VAT for your registration. Don’t close the PayPal page after the payment: you will be automatically redirected to a form and asked to fill in a short bio, motivation, a description of your practice, and how you relate to the camp's topic.
Step 2: The remaining amount for the participation fee will be invoiced to you separately after we reach the minimum number of participants (we will send you an invoice via email)
Step 3: Your registration will be complete after we receive the full payment.
Registration deadlines: September 11th for the regular fee; August 27th for the early bird fee.
Payment: We will send you an invoice after your registration. You can only participate once you have paid the fee.
Participants: We have a maximum of 20 participants; the camp will be organised with a minimum of 14 people.
Q&A Session: Are you interested in joining the camp but still have questions or doubts? You can join the online Q&A session on Zoom on August 27th from 18:30-19:30. You can register at the following link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/camp-on-vernacular-technologies-qa-info-session-tickets-1996444866338?aff=oddtdtcreator
For questions on the registration process and the camp, please contact Lorenzo Gerbi (lorenzo@baltanlaboratories.org).
Facilitators and Contributors
Lorenzo Gerbi and Marlou van der Cruijsen (co-directors, Baltan Laboratories), Carlo Gioia (media artist, interdisciplinary researcher and Radura co-founder), Cesare Pietroiusti (artist and co-founder Fondazione Lac o Le Mon), Luigi Negro (artist, researcher and clinical sociologist, co-founder of Fondazione Lac o Le Mon), local craftsmen and contributors depending on the needs of the group (visits are also part of the excursions of the program, see Context section above).
Organisers
The Camp on Vernacular Technologies is an initiative by Baltan Laboratories, organised in collaboration with Radura and Fondazione Lac o Le Mon.
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