Short Essays

How would the world look or function if it were solar powered?

Written by Alex Nathanson. PDF available here.

Books

A History of Solar Power Art and Design (2021, Routledge)

Order here!

A History of Solar Power Art and Design by Alex Nathanson is the first in-depth and multidisciplenary history of solar power art and design.

Papers

Published research papers written or co-written by Alex Nathanson relating to solar power art and design.

Solar-Powered Server: Designing for a More Energy Positive Internet

Written by Benedetta Piantella, Alex Nathanson, Tega Brain, and Keita Ohshiro

https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3334480.3383155#d449499e1

Abstract: User Experience designers, software engineers and computer scientists alike are rarely tasked with thinking about the environmental impact and resource consumption of their design decisions, both when creating online platforms and experiences and when publishing multimedia content. Furthermore, free or low-cost web and hosting services encourage designers and users alike to overlook the substantial energy footprint of their online behaviors and interactions. The Solar-Powered Server is as a system designed to more deeply investigate the power consumption of our online actions and compare different design elements and choices, while experimenting with the intrinsic qualities of renewable energy sources in order to create more resource-efficient content, to make information storage more accessible under low resource conditions and foster more energy positive behaviors.