Internet! A Retrospective
2016 was the 20th anniversary of the first NetDay and the signing of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. In celebration of the early web, I curated, art directed, and co-organized a gallery show and talk series with Tim Hwang, in partnership with the Internet Archive, San Francisco Chronicle, Electric Objects, and Google. Internet! A Retrospective took place at SPUR San Francisco in October 2016. We got a nice little writeup by Sarah Hotchkiss in KQED. All proceeds were donated to the Internet Archive.
Logo + Icons
In the spirit of early web bitmap icons, I created a pixel script logo and recreated a few classic early web icons. Broken images, dial-up internet, and under construction pages forever in my heart.
Website
I designed and coded a funny little early web-inspired website to promote the event, located at theinternet.show. It was featured on Brutalist Websites.
Swag
I designed and produced stickers, lapel pins, and hats to give away. We fully regret that red hat.
Featured Artists + works
- Aanand Prasad, Geocities Forever
- Cameron Askin, Cameron's World
- Elisabeth Nicula, Aspects of Geological Time
- Gabriele de Seta, Philip Zhai: Read his poems in Chinese here!
- Morehshin Allahyari, In Mere Spaces All Things Are Side By Side I
- Olia Lialina, On the Internet Everybody Knows You had a Dog
- Ben Sisto, Josephine Livingstone, and Joe Bernardi, Web Safe 2k16
Featured Artifacts
- Collected articles (1994–2005), courtesy of the San Francisco Chronicle
- Assorted modems and network hardware, courtesy of Weird Stuff Warehouse
- Early internet company swag, courtesy of Marc Weber of the Computer History Museum
Featured Speakers + talks
- Jenny Odell on how to use the internet
- An Xiao Mina on meme propagation in the developing world
- Rebecca Chernow on recreating a map of the internet using spices
- Jason Scott on archiving the early web