COMPOSTING THE NET
COMPOSTING THE CITY
As a network artist, I am part of the online media art mailing list communities.
These 10 selected lists contain years/tons/bytes/pixels of collective contributions and
knowledge sharing data threaded by date, author and subject.
<nettime> (since 1995) - on networked cultures, policies, and tactics.
spectre (since 2001) - information exchange of media culture.
IDC (2004 - 2017) - the Institute for Distributed Creativity on collaboration.
rohrpost (since 2000) - for media and net culture.
AHA (2002- 2020) - Activism-Hacking-Artivism.
New Media Curating (since 2001) - exhibiting and archiving new media art.
NetBehaviour (since 2004) - Furtherfield London’s community support and sharing.
Thingist (since 1991) - new media culture, fine arts and social activism.
-empyre- (2002 - 2024) - soft-skinned space with monthly thematic discussions.
<oldboys> (2001-2010) - Old Boys Network - a cyberfeminist network.
These mailing lists make their pipermail operated archives open and accessible.
The informations, ideas and debates generated by multiple authors/users are both ephemeral and substantive.
They are the legacy of our networked culture with its accumulated data debris that is to be re(dis)covered in
the future by net archaeologists or post-net bomb-defusers. Composting the Net proposes a hopeful version of
reprocess this toppled digital landfill. By selecting a list from the pull down menu, the mailing list’s archived data is
randomly retrieved and processed in real time. The texts scrambled roll down the web page, dropping alphabets onto the ground. One can pause the texts with a click on the mouse to catch some readings which offer references or relevance to our digital existence. The Net composted cultivates a field of fresh sprouts that crack through the
compost-enriched virtual soil…..
Composting the Net (2012 - )
a networked project by Shu Lea Cheang
Data compost programmation: Roger Sennert
server side: PHP
client side: Browser / HTML / JavaScript (2D Canvas Render)
Special thanks to lists founders, contributors, moderators and conservators.
