/home/
/about/
A colleague of mine once told me, “We’re just mushrooms, fed on shit and kept in the dark.” It feels like an apt description of our relationship to the Internet as a technology. A year of investigation, and still I could never fully make sense of it, never precisely ascertain what was going on or how it worked. Underground, in windowless buildings, inside sealed proprietary devices, the magic of the modern Internet, also kept in darkness, may as well be a mystical mycelium network for all you and I are told. Curious for a technology fundamentally reliant on light to be void of it. The question of what it feeds on, I will leave that open for discussion.
And yet, across this network we access more and more information, our use increasing as quickly as the complexity that shrouds it from our understanding. We engage with this information through the apps and websites that have entered our daily lives. These apps are designed to be used with as little friction as possible, to be user friendly. To a business delivering a digital experience, users don’t need to think about data, to know what server is delivering YouTube videos, or how much energy is being expended. We are simply meant to use these transformative technologies, accepting the costs we are not trusted enough to be told. The Internet, as the network between all our computers, does not demand anything of the data that flows through it, perhaps it shouldn’t, but it is worth thinking about how such a network got us to where we are.
/start/
Take a journey through the ecology of the Internet
Your phone just contacted a server and requested files. The server then told the computer running this screen that you had connected. But how did all this happen? What enabled this digital conversation?
As your phone is part of the network, it is a part of the forest too. Draw and complete the mushroom cap on your phone.
/species:
/habitat:
Typically found in high places, rooftops, on towers and hills/function:
Receiving wireless signals and transferring them to the networkYou arrive at the edge of the dark forest, still kind of familiar, vaguely legible in the world if you are paying attention, but the intangible wireless radio connection allowing you to forget. This Telstra Whyarluss is one of hundreds quietly growing in just the CBD.
/species:
/habitat:
Prefers temperatures between 18° to 27°/function:
Processing data so that it can find its way to and from your phoneYou enter the forest, darkness surrounds, no longer anything familiar. There is a sense you’re being processed, the network trying to keep track of where you came from and where you’re going.
/species:
/habitat:
Usually grows nearby other colonies/function:
Sending and receiving data from outside the private networkYou begin to feel lost, and not because of the pitch black darkness. Around you the data of many different networks passes by. Quietly, these mushrooms process this enormous volume, connecting the Telstra colony, to Optus, Vodafone, and the one you’re heading to.
/species:
/habitat:
Found in areas thriving with many networked colonies/function:
Bridging connections across distinct networksYou begin to feel lost, and not because of the pitch black darkness. Around you the data of many different networks passes by. Quietly, these mushrooms process this enormous volume, connecting the Telstra colony, to Optus, Vodafone, and the one you’re heading to.
/species:
/habitat:
Primarily found surrounding hubs of education/function:
Internet service provider for Universities in AustraliaAs you pass through to a smaller network things calm down a bit. Despite still being in the dark, the Aarnet genus tend to be active mostly during the day.
/species:
/habitat:
Primarily found surrounding hubs of education/function:
Internet service provider for Universities in AustraliaAs you pass through to a smaller network things calm down a bit. Despite still being in the dark, the Aarnet genus tend to be active mostly during the day.
/server/
At last, you reach the server. Typically this would be the darkest part of the forest, but this server is in a small clearing, sitting before you in the light of the day.
The server receives your request and prepares to send you the files...
Here is a list of every file hosted on the server for this project:
If you take a photo of this right now, it might automatically be backed up to a server somewhere, and would be around 5-10 times the amount of data than the files to run everything you see around you now.