Our Networks

“What does collaboration and presence look like when a network is optional? What connections are possible when we leave our data at the door and spend a day on local networks? What new metaphors will help us create spaces for meaningful and different relations partially online?

Last year provided an opening up a decade after platforms foreclosed on a sense of possibility of an earlier web. Turmoil on social media was the backdrop for creative experimentation with protocols and in networked spaces. Yet despite these new avenues , the myriad problems of being online haven’t been adequately addressed. The internet is dead, long live the internet. Before the previous web took shape and before an “always-on” and powered present, there were multiple ways to connect across boundaries and scales. Data moved by foot or mail across sneakernets, computing was time-shared so multiple users could access scarce resources, and ad hoc networks emerged from transitory LAN parties.

Drawing on practices of local-first , solar-powered servers , folk software , and permacomputing, Our Networks 2024 explores transitional technologies and forms of computing that break from always-on connectivity. Over the course of the event, we will investigate histories, tools, and approaches like these that allow us to reframe what computing could mean when the internet, and the cloud, are optional.”