Smout Allen

Christopher Delahunt - Archiving the Intangible

Can Venice become an ‘internet port’ on a revived trade route along the once Silk Road?

GeoCities GIF artefacts are no less important than any other visual aspect of human history: they reveal the origins of a now ubiquitous internet culture, showing where we have been and how far we have come. The internet port gives Venice a new means to once again become a powerful city of trade: trading digital objects rather than physical ones. The Google sponsored internet physicalisation factory creates physical back-ups of digital cultural heritage in tapestry format. The tapestry is displayed across Venice at the same resolution of Google Earth, asserting Google’s control over the world wide web.

Back to the Future 2017