INFORMATION MESH is a web platform celebrating the 30th anniversary of the World Wide Web that explores social, technical, cultural and legal facts throughout different interactive timelines. The project was realized by BA Media & Interaction Design students from ECAL.
It was initiated in October 2018 during a one week workshop in partnership with swissnex San Francisco, where students visited key partners and began developing the project.
The timelines present an overview of Web history, starting with the proposal for hypertext by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN in 1989, initially under the name "Information Mesh." From this start date, users can then explore 30 years of evolution.
The ECAL study group is part of the swissnex Salon, a series of activities exploring the impact of technology on fundamental societal values drawn from the preamble of the Swiss Constitution. This project playfully examines the Utopian idealism at the heart of the Web, reconnecting us to the original optimism surrounding these communication technologies with a critical engagement regarding where we have arrived today. This presents an opportunity to return a collective focus on how we might bring the human back to the center of innovation.
Participants:
Team ECAL: Vincent Jacquier, Pauline Saglio, Laura Perrenoud, Tibor Udvari, Pietro Alberti
Team swissnex: Benjamin Bollman, Mary Ellyn Johnson, Eryk Salvaggio
Students: Alfatih, Becheras Diane, Bisseck Iyo, Boulenaz Jonathan, Breithaupt Kevin, Chenaux Maëlle, Matos Sébastien, Mouthon Bastien, Palauqui Mathieu, Sassoli De Bianchi Luca, Simmen Guillaume, Virág Tamara, Vogel Nathan, Zibaut Anouk
Partners and sponsors: swissnex, Internet Archive, Wikipédia, Canton de Vaud
17.05.2019
