Inquiry

The spatial practices of democracy—the public square, soapbox, or forum—are often used as metaphors for the perceived openness and freedom of the internet. But just as democracy is always an aspirational horizon, the internet remains a space of erasure and exclusion. The internet’s platforms (etymologically, “flat” or “level” surfaces) have retrenched existing hierarchies. Contesting the perceived inevitability of this phenomenon, artists, meme-makers, coders, and programmers are developing strategies for a more equitable internet. Some expose the material infrastructures of the web; others highlight forms of digital labour invisibilized in its everyday functioning; and yet others resist the siphoning of web activity onto platforms by creating decentralized networks.