Introduction

Sheikah Slate — concept art — A self referential golden throne, The Egyptian Museum — source

Keo is an art project that draws inspiration from media archaeology and media computation. We focus our archaeological lenses on uncovering forgotten, obsolete, and overlooked forms of media exploring how earlier forms of mediation have influenced contemporary media technologies in pursuit of restoring ancestral wisdom as our guiding star into the future. Our use of the term Africana refers to that which originates from the African continent, inclusive of her peoples, cultures, myths, cosmologies, languages, philosophies, artifacts etc.

Our goal in designing a mythical Africana computer is realizing a computational medium that blends fantasy as its primary means of socio-cultural expression, interaction and connection.

“People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware” – Alan Kay

In the same spirit as our primers before, we recognize that no virtual media is complete without its corresponding physical media and therefore plan on designing new hardware to suit our virtual, web-based computer henceforth referred to as Webputer.

Reflections on Worldbuilding

"You got to make your own worlds and write yourself in" – Octavia Butler

Wakanda Marketplace — Wakanda marketplace, Marvel Studios — source

Our speculative mythical world builds on the tarot's abstract symbolic language as a highly adaptable multifaceted tool for creative storytelling, navigating growth, major transitions, and provoking deeper reflection. We set the scene in an afrofuturistic courtyard with the court cards representing different character archetypes and the suits serving as elemental biomes for the distinct geographical, social and economic forces and that encompass our speculative world interwoven together with rich artwork, deep lore and animations.

While reflecting on the critical role that myths and cultural practices play by providing the material basis that constitute our mythical world; bridging between different cultures across time, we recognize their supplemental significance as historical mirrors that reflect what has been remembered and expose what has been erased or forgotten. A reminder that without active engagement in cultural archaeology and preservation, we risk recreating futures that replicate the same absences and erasures embedded in the past. Since memory work is a collectively sustained effort, communal approaches to preservation remain as essential for maintaining the continuity of ancestral wisdom across generations.

Unfortunately for most Africana communities, efforts towards preservation and circulation of cultural memory remain constrained by an overreliance on external technological and scientific infrastructures. To loosen this dependency, we consider the creative use of widely accessible networked media production tools, such as Decentralized Web (DWeb) technologies, which offer a way to distribute responsibility and agency by prioritizing indigenous solutions that enable communities to assert authorship and sustain custodianship of their heritage outside monopolized global infrastructures.

Designing for Play

"We think with the objects we love; we love the objects we think with." - Sherry Turkle

Sheikah Slate device — Sheikah Slate, Nintendo — source

We re-imagine the analogical influences of earlier computing systems centered around desks top and office routines such as typing, inbox trays, forms, printing, folders, waste cans, windows, spreadsheets etc. to reflect contemporary interactive media interfaces that cater to play, creative exploration, experimentation and collaboration. Supporting richer interactions and meaningful connections by expanding the social bandwidth through voice, video, movement, engagement with the environment etc. enabling agentic real-time socially networked experiences.

We add a complementary compute layer our myth based social layer that draws inspiration from video games and other forms of interactive storytelling that center imagination, joy and cultural identity. The keo webputer builds on the web browser as a widely accessible networked platform for creative production and experimentation following in the same light as our primers, as seen manifest in the Lively kernel and the Croquet WebOS architectures.

We design with resilience, autonomy and safety in mind building on DWeb standards like Content Identifiers (CIDs) for distributed file sharing and archival, InterPlanetary Naming System (IPNS) for decentralized top level domains, and Decentralied Identifiers (DIDs) for managing identities, wallets, civic engagement etc. We leverage seasoned web technologies like WebAssembly for computing at native speeds, and WebAPIs such as WebRTC for peer to peer communication, WebGPU for accelerated graphics processing, and Web Serial for extended I/O; bridging between the virtual and physical world and designing location based experiences. We cultivate agentic creative expression by building accessible and malleable end user interfaces that combine touch inputs, pen support, drag and drop, scripting etc. to stimulate creativity and discovery through remixing echoing earlier systems like Scratch and Etoys. Our playful design converges as a complete, unified in-browser experience that we hope to materialize as a fun physical object that evokes joy and invites curiosity in a similar effort as the XO Laptop.