In the Italian mid-south, on a spur east of Naples and Mount Vesuvius, there is a small rustic village, Calvanico, ringed by the spectacular Picentini mountain range. For the past six years, at a rambling farmstead in the heart of this village, an unlikely band of entrepreneurs, researchers, artists, farmers, and technologists have set up their headquarters. They are the frontier of a homegrown Italian hacker community dedicated to rural social innovation—a proactive response to automation, firmly rooted in territory and community.

Tony Ponticiello is the first one I meet, at a summer camp in Calvanico dedicated to the idea of “post-capitalism” in 2015. “I’m the DJ,” he says, lunging forward energetically, all smiles and mischief under a magnificent shock of wiry grey hair. “They call me Mr. Time,” he adds, pulling an oversized watch from his pocket. In 2006, Ponticiello launched an ingenious website, cheorae.it (che ora è; what time is it), which became something of a viral sensation. During the previous year, he’d filmed scenes of himself each minute over a 24-hour cycle, producing 1,440 mini-performances reflecting on the rhythm of time. The result is an interactive multimedia clock; boxy, whimsical, earnest—a perfect calcified glory of Web 2.0.