A 3D render of a room. A monitor stands atop a desk, with the message "thanks for watching".

The Autonomous Web

How can people self-govern their internet experience? How can they obtain autonomy from the internet while still being able to use it according to their needs?

Series of Publications, 2021

Research Design Publication

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How can people self-govern their internet experience? How can they obtain autonomy from the internet while still being able to use it according to their needs? These are the questions at the core of the Autonomous Web, a series of digital and physical publications, which attempt to imagine alternatives to the current lack of autonomy on the internet.

The Autonomous Web project has taken part in ZineCamp Festival, Conversas and the WdKA Graduation Show. Featured in Trade Plough online magazine and in an interview at wdka.nl. Nominated for the 2021 WdKA Bachelor Research Award.

Diptych. On the left side, one can see a 3D render of series of frozen alien-like beings; On the right, a render of a stack of circuitboards surrounded by plants and a solar panel.

In its search for internet autonomy, this publication reimagines the web as two extreme versions of itself. An oppressive, alienating dystopia where users became enslaved by the web, and its polar opposite, a utopian realm where biological life and the autonomous internet exist in true cybernetic harmony.

Spread from AW graphic novel. Two alien beings explore an earth whose population's minds have been taken over by the internet.
Spread from AW graphic novel. Two alien beings explore an earth whose population's minds have been taken over by the internet.

The negative story takes the form of a comic novel, examining how the internet cunningly takes away our freedom. In this world, which could be us in a not so distant future, people live in a zombie-like state. Constantly connected to their digital devices, that shun them from reality, they live and die as data generators for the Cloud.

The positive story is a catalogue of experiments, thoughts and behaviours focused on autonomy and the internet. It addresses the nasty aspects of the web as told in the pessimistic story. In doing so, it reimagines the internet as we know it as the speculative Autonomous Web, an internet which is decentralised, where people have control over their own data, identity and actions, and where browsing is an embodied and often multi-user experience.

Still from AW comic novel. Zine being handed out

The Experimental Handbook for Internet Autonomy is a zine, which you can print or download here. As the physical counterpart of this publication, it takes the experiments and behaviours of the Autonomous Web and turns them into executable ‘human algorithms’, making them tangible tools for collaborative (re)thinking about our relationship to the network.