The form of network distributes, duplicates and dislocates entities which can take responsibility for specific content. Tactically counter-balancing the induced overabundance of industrial content, a strategy involving an increased awareness and re-appropriation of scale, time and space dimensions and that might lead to the formation of human mesh networks, small networks connected among them using official or unofficial infrastructures which would enable in turn a process of interdependency.
Space and time in network topologies¶
A networked infrastructure constitutes a system of processes that imply exchanges between nodes over the time and space in which they are situated. As soon as we access it, the network expands our space and reconfigures it with its activities: our possible reach becomes the reach of the network topology. Our time is dynamically reconfigured according to the nodes we connect to. The differentiated time and space are then collectively experienced in each part of the topology, regardless of how the network is configured or reconfigured. The more nodes there are (the larger the topology), the greater the extension of space and time. And the more nodes there are, the more troubled the perception of the network and the relationship between the same nodes becomes.
Network scalability¶
The decentralised dimension of networks has embedded the advantage of scalability, as the connections between the different nodes can be reconfigured to expand or reduce the relational infrastructure, which does not necessarily suffer from or be improved by the number of nodes. The ability to connect a small number of nodes and then expand them, or disconnect some of them and shrink them, can counteract the passive participation in the commodification of the Internet by understanding that “scarcity” is both a “natural” condition and an induced sense of insecurity [^1]. This approach has consequences on two possible levels. The first is the re-appropriation of networked space from a personal perspective, and the second is the consequent re-appropriation of relational dynamics and, thus, the associated content space.
The principles for realising closedness and openness are very subjective and range from the “self-consciously exclusionary “of the underground [^2] to strategic or accidental opening. However, any principle should generally aim to strengthen the relational dimension rather than insist on the number of connections as the utmost social acknowledgement. In the current scenario, this means escaping what Auerbach defines as “meganets”, or “a persistent, evolving and opaque network that determines how we see the world”, in which “the large and the small no longer seem so distinct”. [^3].
Human mesh networks¶
According to the Peruvian scholar Marisol de la Cadena, “there is no singular world or many discreet worlds. There are only connections and relations.” [^4] This radical perspective challenges the approach of understanding the real as the totality of what we see, this totality being the form with which we describe reality (the world). This whole is then no longer understood as the sum of its parts (which can easily escalate into unmanageable dimensions), but as its dynamic infrastructure, which generates everything else with its connecting processes. The totality of the elements is thus reduced to its relational parts, which create the connections between the crucial nodes and the resulting relationships. This relational infrastructure becomes a kind of stable source code that can produce the whole.
With this approach, the network becomes a dynamic backbone for important actions or a collective actor that can trigger transformative effects. This type of infrastructure allows the actors involved to gather around specific ideas and projects, forming new, independent networks and subnetworks, reducing the complexity and increasing the awareness of the network topography, understanding also that “the more connected, the more individualised a point was.” [^5] Our ‘discoverability’ should be evaluated in the context that we value and want to actively connect with, most of them operating outside of industrialised platforms. “We should build human mesh networks whose interdependence preserves the possible multiple layers of application and the collective dimension”. [^6] Networks then become collective actors that contribute, author, enable and disseminate content.
Interdependent network of archives¶
The fundamental ‘care’ that these networks implement and express through their infrastructure and topology can easily be embodied in the labour of love that is, for example, an archive or library, which is itself a specialised archive. Shannon Mattern defines the library as a “network of integrated, mutually reinforcing, evolving infrastructures” [^7], and its internal connective structure is metaphorically rendered by the people who care for it. This results in a dual topology: on the one hand, the content and, on the other, the network of care that supports it. Some of the nodes of the latter are the custodians, an essential part of this particular network topology. [^8]. This care also involves trust between the actors involved. Ubu is thus an exemplary case: the custodians’ network is an interdependent network, a good example of sharing large and carefully curated content through essential mutual support. Building and maintaining a shared online search infrastructure creates a similar kind of interdependent network. As a result of my DAAR residency at V2_ (2023-2024) [^9], together with Wouter Schuur, I developed an early prototype of a “distributed archive” in which the entire V2_ website can be searched together with the entire Neural website. These two interdependent cases epitomise scale, social exchange and the reconfiguration of space/time coordinates. It is an interdependence of the institutions and people involved on both the technological and cultural infrastructure, whose elements are interconnected and mutually indispensable.
[^1] See: shard⁄Abundance
[^2] See: shard⁄Underground
[^3] David B. Auerbach, 2023. bib⁄Meganets: How Digital Forces Beyond Our Control Commandeer Our Daily Lives and Inner Realities. PublicAffairs.
[^4] www⁄https://www.15questions.net/interview/budhaditya-chattopadhyay-talks-sound/page-1/
[^5] Bruno Latour, 2007. bib⁄Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford University., p. 133.
[^6] Networks of trusted humans, in: Alessandro Ludovico, 2024. bib⁄Tactical Publishing: Using Senses, Software, and Archives in the Twenty-First Century. MIT., p. 124.
[^7] Shannon Mattern, 2014. bib⁄Library as Infrastructure.
[^8] shard⁄The Role of Relational Practices in Custodianship
[^9] www⁄https://v2.nl/pages/alessandro-ludovicos-alex-adriaansens-residency-on-the-neural-archive