Alternative geographies of network connectivity.
I hope to create a speculative project that explores the spatial implications (real and imagined, existing and fictional) of NYC Mesh. A community owned wireless communication network, NYC Mesh is not attached to any internet service provider (ISP) and is cooperatively run. In the spirit of the best DIY projects, the collective aims to provide an alternative, and free, communications network for New York City. I am intrigued by the parallels between this project and the rural telephone cooperatives and rural electrification movements of the late 19th/early 20th centuries. However it operates on a very different spatial scale. The subaltern urban internet network is formed through a web of wireless routers installed on buildings scattered throughout Brooklyn, Queens, and Lower Manhattan. Each router receives and conveys internet connection within a certain range. The ad hoc project requires a certain kind of spatial logic, new nodes can only connect within a certain range of established nodes. I am interested in exploring the geographies and social life of this alternate form of internet connectivity.
