About this Event
The terminology used to describe the internet relies on figurative language that ties it to the physical world: Servers live on farms, music and movies arrive via streams, and a lifetime of data floats, allegedly weightless, in the cloud. While these figures of speech suggest a bucolic digital terrain, they often obscure the actual physical infrastructures and material resources that undergird the web, as well as the complex social and economic dynamics that determine how people interact on and access the internet.
For “From Earth to Sky,” a collaborative presentation by Triple Canopy and Are.na, the technologists, artists, and writers Becca Abbe, Ingrid Burrington, Lai Yi Ohlsen, and Ruby Justice Thelot will interrogate the metaphorical language surrounding the internet and investigate what these metaphors reveal about the historical, political, and cultural contexts in which they became popular. From the cloud to the dark forest, they will explore the symbolic landscapes produced by the internet’s metaphors through four short presentations and a panel discussion.
RSVPs help us prepare for events and keep attendees updated, but do not guarantee entry. Attendance is on a first-come, first-served basis (even for those who have RSVP’d) and will be limited to the legal capacity of the venue.
Participants
Are.na is a platform for sharing knowledge, saving content, and creating collections over time. It’s been described as “playlists, but for ideas” and an “Internet memory palace.” For the past 14 years, Are.na has worked to cultivate an experience on the internet that is calm, thoughtful, and introspective, funded solely by the people who use it.
Becca Abbe is a graphic designer and coder living in Brooklyn. She has worked with Japan’s Ministry of Economic Trade and Industry (METI), Columbia GSAPP, Laurie Simmons, the Manhattan Art Journal, and New York Television, and was formerly the creative director of Triple Canopy.
Ingrid Burrington has been writing about computers since 2014 and is the author of Networks of New York: An Illustrated Field Guide to Urban Internet Infrastructure.
Lai Yi Ohlsen is an artist and researcher working across internet, performance, video, and history. She is a senior product manager at Cloudflare and adjunct lecturer in Design and Technology at Parsons.
Ruby Justice Thelot is a designer, cyberethnographer, and artist based in New York. He is a professor of design and media theory at New York University and the founder of the award-winning creative research and design studio 13101401 inc.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Triple Canopy, 264 Canal Street, New York, United States
USD 0.00
