“Other Networks” is a cluster of projects headed up by Dr. Lori Emerson and Dr. libi striegl that document and experiment with networks outside of what’s now called “the internet.” We are invested in digging up alternative and forgotten networks so that we can reimagine the future of the internet as the future of networks. While we publish books and articles on other networks, we also run an asynchronous book club, host events and workshops, and share “recipes” on how to build your own “other network.” These projects are run in conjunction with the Media Archaeology Lab (MAL) and they are supported by both the MAL and the College of Media, Communication, and Information at the University of Colorado Boulder.
articles & books
Other Networks-related books, articles, essays, and pamphlets explore how the internet could have been and still could be otherwise explore networks before the internet:
- Other Networks: A Radical Technology Sourcebook (Anthology Editions, forthcoming 2024; table of contents available here)
- “How To Read a Network,” The Digital Reading Condition. Eds. Maria Engberg, Iben Have, Birgitte Pedersen. London: Routledge, 2022
- “The Net Has Never Been Neutral,” August 2021
- “Alternative Internets and Their Lost Histories,” Los Angeles Review of Books. April 2021
- “‘Did We Dream Enough?’ THE THING BBS As An Experiment in Social-Cyber Sculpture,” Rhizome. New York City, NY. December 2020
- “Anarchive as Technique | The Media Archaeology Lab’s OLPC Mesh Network Project,” The International Journal of Digital Humanities (April 2019): 1-12
- “What’s Wrong With the Internet and How We Can Fix It: An Interview with Internet Pioneer John Day,” Ctrl-Z: New Media Philosophy 5 (December 2015)
book club
The Other Networks Book Club is an asynchronous reading group. We’ll be focusing on a book each month starting in February, 2024. Each book will have a corresponding thread on the Media Archaeology Lab’s Mastodon as well as a post here and an Instagram post. We’ll be sharing our thoughts as we read through the entire book, but feel free to read as much or as little as you’d like and contribute to the discussion in whatever way feels most comfortable for you.
events
Other Networks events planned for 2024 include workshops on amateur radio, Videotex, and barbed wire fence phones!
recipes
Other Networks “recipes” reflect our belief in the importance of empowering people to imagine the future of the internet as the future of networks–partly through educating about the wild range of networks that existed before the internet and partly through educating about how to build your own network (BYON!). We have posted recipes on how to build your own mesh network, how to do short range over-air-transmission, how to build your own mini FM transmitter, and there are more planned for 2024.
other networks 