Thursday, November 27, 2025 - 19:00h
Nave 17
Collaborative prototype presentation 

Pablo Somonte Ruano, Laura Budia Piña, Javier Arango Garfias, Lien Tran, Rok Kranjc.

POCAS uses economic science fiction to imagine an autonomous mutualist network in an alternative version of contemporary Mexico City, where distributed computing competes with capitalism. It is a research project that explores how distributed computing can sustain mutualist and post-capitalist economies. Inspired by centuries of self-governance and decades of peer-to-peer technologies, it maps how existing tools and practices can enable autonomous and collaborative infrastructures today.

This prototype has been developed collaboratively based on an initial proposal by Pablo Somonte Ruano

Webinar

LAB 4 Weird Futures project submited by Pablo Somonte Ruano (Mexico / Germany).

POCAS (Poca Organización Colaborativa de Auto-servicio) is a research project exploring how distributed computing can support mutualist, postcapitalist economies. Inspired by centuries of self-governance and decades of peer-to-peer technologies, it maps how existing tools and practices can enable autonomous, collaborative infrastructures today. 
The laboratory would be best suited for collaborators with curiosity, interest or experience in self-sufficiency, DIY, crafting, low-tech, repairs, collaboration, self-organization, mutual-aid, care, informal economies, organizing, science-fiction, speculation, cybernetics, distributed computing, open-source LLMs, local-first software, collaborative finance and postcapitalism.
For the laboratory, participants will collaborate on the creation of a pocas LARP (Live-Action Role-Playing game) set in the world of pocas: a collaborative exercise in which players simulate the creation, sustenance, and growth of a pocas store in a fictitious neighborhood in Mexico City. The game will use a locally running, open-source Large Language Model as the Game Master, generating scenarios and challenges for players to respond to with their self-organized protocolitos (tiny protocols). It is intended both as a sandbox for testing pocas organizational tactics and as a vehicle for collective speculation, opening up the project and its world-building through play, science fiction, and pluriversal exploration.

About Pablo Somonte Ruano  
Pablo Somonte Ruano is a designer, programmer and artist creating ambiguous software, generative systems, experimental interfaces, transmedia narratives, p2p infrastructure and odd music. In recent years they have collaborated with organizations such as neighbourhoods.network, the Economic Space Agency and others at the Crypto Commons Association to research and design software for social coordination and postcapitalist economies. Pablo is interested in the potential of digital technology to support collective processes of participation and relational autonomy. 

Potential collaborators (skills, background, interests) 

• People of all backgrounds interested in alternative economies (Economía Social y Solidaria), cooperativism, and complementary currencies. 
• Game designers and LARP players interested in speculative world-building and collective play. 
• Artisans, DIY builders and anyone with experience in small-scale production of basic goods and services (soap, food, natural medicine, carpentry, sewing, etc.) 
• Organizers and activists with environmental, trans-feminist, anti-capitalist or mutual aid backgrounds. 
• Facilitators familiar with participatory design methods and tools for non-hierarchical organization.
• Researchers or theorists in fields like cybernetics, postcapitalist economics, or science fiction. 
• Technologists interested in open-source LLMs, local-first software, p2p systems, and alternative web3. 
• Artists and designers interested in visualizing fictional infrastructures.