Memex

Described by Vannevar Bush in 1945 in his article As We May Think, this was the first conceptualization of hypertext/media. Bush worked on the Manhattan Project and expressed his concern for the direction of scientific efforts toward destruction, rather than understanding, and explicated a desire for a sort of collective memory machine.

Intergalactic Computer Network

In the early 1960s, J.C.R. Licklider envisioned the hypothetical Intergalactic Computer Network as a way to share information and ideas throughout the world. This directly led to the development of the ARPANET in the late 1960s.

ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network)

ARPA (now DARPA) was founded by the US Department of Defense in the late 1960's as a military network in order to communicate in the aftermath of a nuclear war. Along with the NPL network in England, it was an early packet switching network and the first to implement the TCP/IP Protocol.

One of the original goals was also to create a network of sharing information.

1970


1982

Centralized vs. Decentralized Networks

Packet switching was developed as a more economical and reliable mode of data distribution than a centralized net.



With a decentralized network, one company/person couldn't control all communication.

TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol)

Developed by Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn in 1974 and implemented by DARPA in 1982, TCP/IP provides network connectivity and specifies how data should be packeted, addressed, transmitted, routed and received at the destination. It became the standardized way of communicating in 1982 and allowed for international networked communication because all networks were communicating the same way.

Packet Switching

This image shows some of the files that make up my website, listing them in alphabetical order. My website as a single entity is created using most of these files, but they still exist individually. For example, an image that is used to create my website can still function as an image on its own.

WWW

The World Wide Web isn't the Internet, but rather one way we can use the Internet. The Internet is used in other ways, such as video chat, email applications, BitTorrtent, etc.

In 1989 while at CERN, Tim Berners-Lee created HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) and applications that could read HTML (Hypertext Markup Language). He also went on to form the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in fears that corporations would try to monetize the growing popularity of the WWW and HTML. This group still develops the open standardization of the web.

Web Browser

A web browser is simply software for rendering webpage content using HTML. They use HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol): Browser is client and website on a remote computer is the server.

WorldWideWeb: First web browser (1991)

Created by TBL Only way to navigate the internet

Erwise: First GUI Browser (1992)

Mosaic: Credited with popularizing the Internet (1993)

First to display images with text instead of in different windows

Internet Infrastructure

The "Cloud"

Olia Lialina: My Boyfriend Came Back From The War, 1996

Lialina refers to the project as a netfilm because of it’s narrative flow and that the images refer to silent films.

Summary from Wikipedia:

My Boyfriend Came Back From the War is an example of interactive hypertext storytelling. The work consists of nested frames with black and white web pages and (sometimes animated) grainy GIF images. When clicking hyperlinks in the work, the frame splits into smaller frames and the user reveals a nonlinear story about a couple that is reunited after a nameless military conflict. The lovers find it difficult to reconnect; the woman confesses that she has had an affair with a neighbor while the returned soldier proposes marriage. The story unfolds to the point where the screen has become a mosaic of empty black frames.

You can play it here.

JODI: %Location wwwwwwwww.jodi.org, Late 1990's

JODI is a net art collective of two artists, Joan Heemskerk and Dirk Paesmans. Working on the web since the beginning, this piece considers the history of the net as a military project. They also challenge the accepted norms of interface and user interaction creating playful and sometimes confusing experiences. To navigate through this piece, you must find hyperlinks embedded in the pages.

You can view it here.

Alexei Shuglin: Form Art, 1997

Another early net art piece, Shuglin uses mundane form inputs as a playful medium.

Play here and just start clicking around :)

BLACKNESS FOR SALE, Mendi + Keith Obadike, 2001

Considering the rising economic power of the web and the economic relationship to black bodies in history, Mendi and Keith Obadike put their blackness up for sale on Ebay in 2001. The auction was eventually taken down.

View a recreation here

Screenfull: ABE LINKOLN AND JIMPUNK, 2004

Using the format of the blog, Abe Linkoln and Jimpunk curated a seemingly random collection of media from the web and created a loud audio visual aesthetic. This was pushed even further by them often redesigning the layout, questioning the coming standardization of the web with sites like Facebook and Instagram.

You can see the live site here.

Joana Moll: CO2GLE, 2014

A visualization of how much CO2 is emitted by Google since you’ve visited the site, bringing into focus the often overlooked relationship technology has with the climate.

Visit the site here

Body Anxiety: Curated by Jennifer Chan and Leah Schrager, 2015

Think of sex-divided washrooms and fashion stores. Public spaces are gendered spaces; the web is gendered space. Once you reveal yourself to be a female-identified user, people treat you like one. On the internet I cannot escape who I really am, I can only abandon my body. The internet has allowed women and gender-queer people to reinvent and explore sexual identities by sharing self-imagery that radically differ from the limited versions of femininity seen in pop culture. But anytime a woman posts her own image online she is subject to social scrutiny. Her image exists in dialogue with all the other selfies, dating profiles, pornified bodies, TV ads and model profiles on the internet. It is treated as public property.

Visit the show here

Kim Asendorf: CSS Compositions

Formal compositions using CSS. View them here.

Morehshin Allahyari: The Laughing Snake, 2018

Hypertext narrative that re-figures and re-contextualizes the mythological jinn character.

From the Whitney's website:

Morehshin Allahyari's hypertext narrative The Laughing Snake uses the myth of a jinn—a supernatural creature or monstrous figure in Arabian mythology—to explore the status of women and the female body in the Middle East. According to the original myth appearing in the fourteenth and fifteenth-century Arabic manuscript Kitab al-bulhan (Book of Wonders), the Laughing Snake had taken over a city, murdering its people and animals while numerous attempts to kill her remained unsuccessful...Allahyari takes us though a labyrinthine online narrative that mixes personal and imagined stories to address topics such as femininity, sexual abuse, morality, and hysteria. The snake emerges as a complex figure, reflecting multifaceted and sometimes distorted views of the female, and refracting images of otherness and monstrosity.

Play it here

Net Art Anthology on Rhizome