
This week we’ll dive into types of wireless networks that have been designed and built for different social contexts and shaped by community goals and limitations. In particular, we’ll explore networks designed for resistance, resilience, and other social goals, and we’ll collaboratively design our own “speculative” networks.
Workshop: Every Network Tells a Story
Guests: Scott Rasmussen & Shea Molloy (NYC Mesh)
To be reviewed before class:
- Wireless networks
- 5G: Shannon Mattern, “Networked Dream Worlds,” Real Life Magazine (July 8, 2019).
- Community Wireless: Greta Byrum, “Building the People’s Internet,” Urban Omnibus (October 2, 2019).
- Mesh wireless
- Vice Motherboard, “Meet the People Building Their Own Internet in Detroit,” {video: 12:12} featuring the Detroit Community Technology Project.
- Karl Bode, “A DIY Internet Network Has Drastically Expanded Its Coverage in NYC,” Vice Motherboard (June 25, 2019).
- Tina Trinh, “Mesh Networks Can Keep People Connected After Natural Disasters,” Voice of America (September 12, 2017).
- Sneakernets
- An Xiao Mina, “Mapping the Sneakernet,” The New Inquiry (March 19, 2015).
- “This Is Cuba’s Netflix, Hulu, and Spotify,” Vox (2015) {video: 7:01}.
- Post a reading response if you’ve signed up to do so?
SUPPLEMENTAL RESOURCES:
- What’s happening in muni and community networking in the US: Chris Mitchell’s Community Networks blog, via the Institute for Local Self-Reliance
- Analysis of community networking in the US: Greta Byrum and Diana Nucera, “United States of America” in Global Information Society Watch (2018).
- How mesh has been used as a tool of international soft power: Jim Glanz and John Markoff, “US Underwrites Internet Detours Around Censors,” The New York Times (2011).
- Mesh in NYC: Aditi Mehta, “Red Hook WiFi: From Mesh Networking to Social Networking,” Global Media Technologies & Cultures Lab (September 12, 2019).
- The “bigger picture” of how networks fit together: Greta Byrum and Diana Nucera, “How Does the Internet Work?” (Detroit Community Technology Project, 2018).
- Amazon’s Snowball Sneakernet: Jordan Novet, Jeniece Pettitt, and Andrew Evers, “How Amazon Uses 18-Wheelers to Transfer Heavy Data Loads to the Cloud,” CNBC (July 20, 2019) {video: 13:47}; “Snowball,” Amazon Web Services (2016) {video: 3:19}.
- El Paquete Semanal: Kim Wall, “The Weekly Package,” Harper’s (July 2017); Antonio García Martínez, “Inside Cuba’s DIY Internet Revolution,” Wired (July 26, 2017); Ernesto Oroza, “El Paquete Semanal – Cuba,” The Pirate Book (2015); Orit Gat, “Data Roaming,” Frieze (July 30, 2016); Michaelanne Dye, David Never, Josiah Mangiameli, Amy S. Bruckman, and Neha Kumar, “El Paquete Semanal: The Week’s Internet in Havana,” CHI, Montreal, Canada, April 21-26, 2016; “El Paquete Semanal,” Start Up Cuba 4 (2018) {video: 8:45}.
The idea of a DIY network really interests me because of the extent of what we can consider a network. We have spoke in class about network ways of thinking that human beings already exhibit and how important these ways of thinking are to our social organization. I think that the infrastructure and uses of network technology has the potential to deeply affect our social organization. Yet the infrastructure for this new technology is still deeply attached to the infrstructure of previous technology and previous agreements, both commercial and public. Understanding the borderland between huge instiuitions and buisnesses that control our connectivity and the ability for DIY, is a helpful step in understanding the future of connectivity both technological and social.
All of the articles especially Greta’s touched on the hardware required to create networks. In many cases the hardwares minimalism, like the internet in a box, actually proves to not only be more convienent but in some cases more resiliant. The article used the example of hurricaine sandy and red hook, a neighborhood right on the coast of BK and thus very heavily exposed to the hurricaine. All other network and communication systems failed through most of BK exept the DIY mesh network put together in the community but local organizers. Besides an infrastrcutural win, I wonder how DIY networks would change the conent of the internet and what was shared or the purpose it was shared with. I know this is a general question and doest give any idea of a a real scenario. The article makes me wonder about the future and about its potential.