Rebuild the Internet

To me the internet is something that connects people that might never have connected before, even if only briefly. Someone on the other side of the world, who you would have never crossed paths with normally, could read or like your post online. Of course that’s an easy statement to make, and the internet can be so much more than that.

Nowadays people build their online identity by being on multiple platforms at once. All of these platforms have a different culture, a different way you are “meant” to express yourself, but they’re all still you. And actions on these sites ripple out to other sites, either due to the migration of cultures or companies imitating each other. That’s why I represented the internet as a web, connecting multiple different platforms to each other.

The internet can also be a double edged sword. It allows you to present yourself to the world at large and have any knowledge at your fingertips. This makes you want to stay connected longer and longer, until you never want to be disconnected. My visualization being a web also represents how these sites can stick to you, and trap you on them.

What’s so fascinating about the internet to me is how it’s both permanent and impermanent. On the internet there is no way to get back something that has been deleted, as many discovered when MySpace lost millions of user data due to a faulty server migration. Users and ex-users were outraged when photos and videos of friends and family that passed away were lost forever. This is why I made the web out of sand and scattered parts of the web; because it slips through your fingers never to be found again.