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This website is the result of a series of workshops hosted by Rhizome called "Solar Web In schools," and is hosted on Rhizome's very own solar-server.

This workshop series, held in May and June 2025, aimed to enhance digital literacy among elementary school students by introducing web art as a medium for creative expression. Through interactive, hands-on activities, students explored the environmental impact of participating in digital culture and internet-based art practices. Workshops were taught by Kayla Drzewicki, Bri Griffin, and Diwa Tamrong.

view lesson plans^* and other resources we produced for this workshop series!

What is a solar server?

A solar-powered server is a computer that is powered by a solar panel and a small battery. Each server can only offer intermittent connectivity that is dependent on available sunshine, the length of day and local weather conditions. Rhizome's solar server is located on the roof of 18th Street Arts Center, and as such this website might go offline during periods of cloudy weather.

Why ASCII?

It’s easy to overlook the environmental impact of the modern web. Websites today are often built using heavy frameworks, high-resolution images, and auto-playing media, all of which consume significant amounts of energy. As a result, the internet has become an increasingly resource-intensive space.

Enter ASCII, a character encoding standard that represents text using numerical values. As early as 1966, computer enthusiasts started to explore the artistic potential of ASCII, frequently sharing their creations on bulletin board systems in the late 80s and 90s.

In this workshop, we utilized ASCII as an environmentally-friendly “hack” to re-interpret our images solely out of text, thus resulting in smaller "image" sizes.

What is Rhizome?

Rhizome champions born-digital art and culture through commissions, exhibitions, scholarship, and digital preservation. Founded by artist Mark Tribe as an email discussion list including some of the first artists to work online, Rhizome has played an integral role in the history of contemporary art engaged with digital technologies and the internet.

Thanks!

Special Thank you to: Tega Brain, Benedetta Piantella, and Alex Nathanson of Solar Protocol, Mark Beasley, Diwa Tamrong, Nafisa Skeie, Rachel Shapiro, Brooklyn Arbor Elementary School, Waterside Elementary, Ps.1 and Ps.96

Thank you to Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation for making this program possible.

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

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* Please e-mail [email protected] to access lesson plans, for general questions, or if you're interested in bringing solar web workshops to your school!