Connectvity, 2007

(1 month exhibition with 3 hour performances twice a week progressing the installation)

Description by curator Tricia Van Eck:

Two days a week throughout the month of December at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Sara Schnadt constructed a network of string, thread, twine, and wire between two maps across the gallery. By connecting these maps - one, a text-array map presenting large quantities of popular internet search terms, and the other, a geographical map plotting internet access around the globe - Schnadt created a low-tech visualization of the world wide web. Using a wide range of found and donated fiber and wire she metaphorically celebrated the many types and sources of content on the web and its publicly accessible, free exchange of knowledge.

Despite the internet’s perceived universality, Schnadt’s world map illustrates an inequitable distribution of global internet access. It plots internet exchange points (IXPs), the physical infrastructure of the internet which serve as regional entry points to the web. It also plots global distribution of IP addresses. While efforts are being made to increase IXPs and IP addresses allocation in developing nations, internet access predominantly clusters in industrialized areas and is sparse or nonexistent in other areas. Nevertheless, Schnadt’s map of popular search terms and community assigned tags (categorization topics) from thousands of global internet sites and blogs illustrate how vast, varied, and dynamic the internet has become.

Her method of displaying this flow of information references the relatively new phenomenon of community-contributed organizational systems such as folksonomies and Web 2.0. These non-hierarchical systems facilitate creative sharing, as users can not only access information, but also collaborate in its creation, organization, navigation, and dissemination. Schnadt’s network emphasizes this recent but fundamental shift in the web from a place to receive fixed information published by a few sources in a static format to a vibrant network of community exchange open to public contributions.

Costume: Agnieszka Kulon
Images: John Sisson

using allyou.net