Welcome! You are not alone
Before doomscrolling and dead internet theory became a thing, the internet used to be a place of promise, excitement, and possibility. Surfing the web could be compared to urban flânerie: a surrender to the unexpected, drifting from website to website, from link to link. Serendipitous moments of discovery were free from the aura of suspicion that plagues today’s algorithmically enhanced social media experience (“why am I being shown this content?”), and felt earned, turning linksharing into an act of kinship and community-building.
(W)HOLE shows how, underneath the current desolated surface, the promise of a better digital world is still alive. Understanding the workings and trappings of digital infrastructure is an important first step to revive and fulfill this promise. In the repository, you will find a carefully curated list of initiatives, tools, and resources that aim to study, critique and improve our shared online reality. We invite you to get lost, to find things you didn’t know you were looking for, and to connect with new friends and communities – for the only way to free ourselves from this clusterf*ck, is to do it together.
Welcome! You are not alone
Before doomscrolling and dead internet theory became a thing, the internet used to be a place of promise, excitement, and possibility. Surfing the web could be compared to urban flânerie: a surrender to the unexpected, drifting from website to website, from link to link. Serendipitous moments of discovery were free from the aura of suspicion that plagues today’s algorithmically enhanced social media experience (“why am I being shown this content?”), and felt earned, turning linksharing into an act of kinship and community-building.
(W)HOLE shows how, underneath the current desolated surface, the promise of a better digital world is still alive. Understanding the workings and trappings of digital infrastructure is an important first step to revive and fulfill this promise. In the repository, you will find a carefully curated list of initiatives, tools, and resources that aim to study, critique and improve our shared online reality. We invite you to get lost, to find things you didn’t know you were looking for, and to connect with new friends and communities – for the only way to free ourselves from this clusterf*ck, is to do it together.
Startpages
Startpages
Summary
A curated collection of minimal, hand-built browser start pages that offer lightweight, customizable, and privacy-friendly alternatives to commercial homepages and platform-controlled search portals.
MAB Student Awards – Project Archive (Media Architecture Biennale)
MAB Student Awards – Project Archive (Media Architecture Biennale)
Summary
Browse student projects in media architecture-animated façades, spatial media art, participatory & equitable tech. Filter by year/place/theme; see nominees and winners from MAB20–MAB23.
switching.software – Ethical, Easy, Privacy-Friendly Alternatives
switching.software – Ethical, Easy, Privacy-Friendly Alternatives
Summary
A community-maintained directory recommending ethical, privacy-respecting, and open-source alternatives to mainstream apps, helping users shift toward decentralized, sustainable, and user-friendly digital tools.
Pirate Care Syllabus
Pirate Care Syllabus
Summary
An open, collaborative syllabus documenting practices of collective care, mutual aid, and resistance to bureaucratic control through activist pedagogy and shared learning.
Reading Machines
Reading Machines
Summary
An artistic exploration of how machines read, distort, and reinterpret text, using computational processes to expose the strangeness of algorithmic cognition and resist normative models of legible data.
Rethink the Web – Lightweight Publishing & Playful Experiments
Rethink the Web – Lightweight Publishing & Playful Experiments
Summary
Curated links to ultra-light publishing and web toys-itty.bitty.site, txti, sdnotes, Your World of Text-showing minimal, no-signup ways to make and share pages.
Experiements in Hyperstext thinking
Experiements in Hyperstext thinking
Summary
A public digital garden where Tom Critchlow shares notes, essays, and research-in-progress, inviting open exploration and modeling transparent, community-oriented knowledge practices outside platforms.
Collective Intelligence Tools – Public Trello Board
Collective Intelligence Tools – Public Trello Board
Summary
A public Trello board cataloging platforms and methods for collective intelligence-crowdsourcing, deliberation, mapping, decision-making-with links, categories, and quick notes for exploration.
Very Interactive Library – Readings on Gentle Webmaking
Very Interactive Library – Readings on Gentle Webmaking
Summary
Laurel Schwulst’s curated library of essays, poems, and zines on the web-featuring pieces like “The Internet’s Back-to-the-Land Movement” and “The Rejection of Closure.”
Rainbow Query (1997) – Archived
Rainbow Query (1997) – Archived
Summary
An early web resource archived from 1997 that offered LGBTQ+ information directories, demonstrating grassroots online knowledge-sharing before platforms, and preserving community-built digital history.
Whole Earth Index
Whole Earth Index
Summary
Indexing and referencing the Whole Earth Catalog’s legacy of tools and ideas.
Feeling of Computing Wiki
Feeling of Computing Wiki
Summary
A personal, openly shared wiki collecting notes, ideas, and resources across art, tech, and culture, functioning as a transparent knowledge garden that invites exploration, reuse, and collective learning.
Ravi Anand’s Digital Garden
Ravi Anand’s Digital Garden
Summary
A digital garden documenting open research, design thinking, and collaborative experimentation in web practices.
Appropedia – The Sustainability Wiki
Appropedia – The Sustainability Wiki
Summary
Collaborative wiki of how-tos and research on appropriate tech, humanitarian engineering, and sustainable living-open guides, projects, and tools to reduce poverty and environmental impact.
Data Is Plural – Structured Data Archive by Jeremy Singer-Vine
Data Is Plural – Structured Data Archive by Jeremy Singer-Vine
Summary
Data Is Plural is a curated archive of open datasets collected by journalist Jeremy Singer-Vine. It highlights transparency, public knowledge, and creative reuses of data while questioning how datasets shape narratives and social understanding.
The Internet Mapping Project Maps
The Internet Mapping Project Maps
Summary
A collection of hand-drawn “maps of the internet” submitted by thousands of participants, revealing personal perceptions of digital space and creating a shared, evolving portrait of online experience.
Custom Google Map
Custom Google Map
Summary
Interactive Google My Map pointing at lat 42.589, lon 12.284 (central Italy) with zoom 6 - a backdrop layer for sites, planning, or annotations. Shared custom map, not a preset Google layer.
Image Atlas
Image Atlas
Summary
An art project by Taryn Simon and Aaron Swartz comparing image-search results across countries, revealing how censorship, national ideology, and platform bias shape what different publics are allowed to see.
Insteresting
Insteresting
Summary
A hand-curated directory highlighting small, personal, experimental websites, celebrating the indie web’s creativity and offering discovery paths beyond commercial platforms and algorithmic feeds.
Liberation Toolbox
Liberation Toolbox
Summary
An evolving collection of tools, readings, and resources designed to help individuals and collectives build practices of digital self-defense, care, and liberation.
Underground Atlas, Mycorrhizal Biodiversity
Underground Atlas, Mycorrhizal Biodiversity
Summary
Atlas of underground fungal networks and biodiversity for research and conservation.
The Big List of Personal Websites
The Big List of Personal Websites
Summary
A curated directory of personal websites that champions independent publishing, non-commercial presence, and a decentralized, people-owned web ethos.
WebSeitz Digital Garden
WebSeitz Digital Garden
Summary
Bill Seitz’s self-hosted wiki and digital garden, active since 2002, documents personal learning, collaboration, and decentralized publishing as an act of online independence.
Diagram Website Index
Diagram Website Index
Summary
A collaboratively built spreadsheet mapping alternative web histories, artworks, and networks, documenting decades of activist engagement with technology and digital culture.
List of Internet Forums
List of Internet Forums
Summary
A comprehensive Wikipedia list documenting major internet forums across topics and languages, tracing how online discussion spaces evolved as early infrastructures of digital communities.
Handmade Web Library
Handmade Web Library
Summary
A curated library of resources celebrating the handmade web-small-scale, personal, and experimental websites that value care, creativity, and independence from corporate platforms.
Networks of Care Wiki
Networks of Care Wiki
Summary
A collaborative wiki documenting projects, readings, and reflections on how networks can embody care, interdependence, and mutual support within digital and social systems.
MelonKing’s Greenhouse
MelonKing’s Greenhouse
Summary
A curated directory of personal and experimental websites celebrating the playful, creative spirit of the early web and encouraging independent, community-driven webmaking.
Museum of Modern Glass
Museum of Modern Glass
Summary
A web-based art project built on Neocities that mimics a digital museum, using irony and early-internet aesthetics to question the preservation and display of online culture.
Neocities Browse
Neocities Browse
Summary
A public directory of user-created websites on Neocities, showcasing a thriving community of independent creators building a playful, open, and decentralized web.
Pluriverse World
Pluriverse World
Summary
A living directory of initiatives imagining technological and social alternatives to the dominant global order, celebrating plurality, collaboration, and shared knowledge.
SND – Slovenian Net Art Dossier
SND – Slovenian Net Art Dossier
Summary
A digital archive documenting the history of Slovenian net art, preserving experimental works and mapping the evolution of artistic practices in online environments.
Winamp Skin Museum
Winamp Skin Museum
Summary
An online archive preserving thousands of Winamp skins, celebrating early web aesthetics, user customization, and the collective creativity of digital subcultures.
Textures – Neocities
Textures – Neocities
Summary
A hand-crafted Neocities collection presenting small experimental web pages, celebrating simple HTML, personal creativity, and independent publishing outside commercial platforms and heavy frameworks.
The Old Net
The Old Net
Summary
A web archive recreating the early internet experience through snapshots, vintage interfaces, and restored sites, encouraging exploration of pre-platform web cultures and independent, user-built pages.
Twelve Earths
Twelve Earths
Summary
A curated archive mapping twelve planetary “Earths” as conceptual worlds, exploring how materials, environments, and infrastructures shape ecological imagination and interconnected futures beyond extraction.
Web Revival – MelonLand Wiki
Web Revival – MelonLand Wiki
Summary
A community-driven wiki page documenting the “web revival” movement, celebrating handmade sites, personal creativity, and independent publishing outside corporate platforms and algorithmic feeds.
Wild Wild Directory
Wild Wild Directory
Summary
A playful, hand-curated directory showcasing small personal sites, experimental web projects, and indie creators, celebrating the wild, decentralized spirit of the handmade web beyond platform boundaries.
Queer Computer – Are.na Channel
Queer Computer – Are.na Channel
Summary
A curated Are.na channel exploring queer approaches to computing, gathering artworks, texts, and references that challenge normative tech structures and imagine more inclusive, intersectional digital worlds.
Secrets of the Universe – Are.na Channel
Secrets of the Universe – Are.na Channel
Summary
A curated Are.na channel collecting texts, images, and conceptual fragments that explore shared meaning-making, collective inquiry, and open knowledge practices through poetic and speculative lenses.
David Rumsey Map Collection
David Rumsey Map Collection
Summary
A vast digital archive of historic maps that preserves, catalogs, and freely shares cartographic knowledge, enabling public access to geographic history outside commercial or institutional barriers.
Historical Tech Tree
Historical Tech Tree
Summary
An interactive timeline mapping key technological milestones across civilizations, offering an open, visual way to explore how tools, systems, and ideas evolve and shape collective human development.
The Living Internet – History of the Net
The Living Internet – History of the Net
Summary
A long-running online reference documenting the origins, technologies, and cultures of the internet, offering openly accessible explanations, timelines, and histories that support public understanding.
Submarine Cable Map
Submarine Cable Map
Summary
An interactive global map visualizing submarine internet cables, revealing the physical routes, landing points, and infrastructural scale that underpin worldwide connectivity and resource-intensive data flows.
Taeyoon Choi – Poetic Computation, Care & Community Tech
Taeyoon Choi – Poetic Computation, Care & Community Tech
Summary
Korean artist–educator exploring code, drawing, and care. Projects, essays, and workshops on poetic computation, accessibility, and community tech (e.g., Distributed Web of Care).
Agentic Computing
Agentic Computing
Summary
Advocates for software that hands agency back to users by making everything writeable, rewriteable and community-driven, restoring the web as a place people shape, not just consume.
"Environmental impact of express food delivery in China: the role of personal consumption choice"
"Environmental impact of express food delivery in China: the role of personal consumption choice"
Summary
Quantifies the CO₂ emissions of express food delivery in China-each order averaging 111.8 g CO₂ eq, 86% from packaging-and shows how personal behaviour (e.g., walking <1 km) could cut 68%.
Bernardina Borra – The City as a Project
Bernardina Borra – The City as a Project
Summary
An essay analyzing how urban infrastructures mirror digital governance systems. Borra discusses architecture as a medium of control, participation, and shared responsibility in the networked city.
Kim Albrecht -About
Kim Albrecht -About
Summary
Researcher and designer working on networks, complexity, and data visualization.
AI Anarchies
AI Anarchies
Summary
A research hub exploring anarchic, feminist, and decolonial approaches to artificial intelligence. It proposes alternative frameworks for machine autonomy and ethics.
AI War Cloud
AI War Cloud
Summary
A speculative artwork imagining large-scale conflicts between AI systems, exposing power dynamics, hidden infrastructures, and the absurdity of automated decision-making in militarized digital landscapes.
Feminist Ecologies: Changing Environments in the Anthropocene – University of Melbourne
Feminist Ecologies: Changing Environments in the Anthropocene – University of Melbourne
Summary
Feminist Ecologies explores how feminist theory and practice reframe our relationship with the environment in the age of the Anthropocene. It connects ecological crisis with social inequality, proposing care, interdependence, and collective responsibility as frameworks for survival.
Atlas of Ownership – Mapping Property Rights Across Time & Space
Atlas of Ownership – Mapping Property Rights Across Time & Space
Summary
Open Systems Lab’s prototype map of property rights/obligations. Browse pattern classes, explore real-world entries, and contribute models to rethink ownership.
Tile Maps – Comp Form Lesson
Tile Maps – Comp Form Lesson
Summary
Comp Form lesson on tile maps-composing images from small repeating tiles. Explains concepts and patterns with tools (pencil + paper) to design tilesets for games, graphics, and generative art.
The Cost of Data – Interactive Dashboard
The Cost of Data – Interactive Dashboard
Summary
Interactive visualization revealing the hidden energy and carbon costs of online activities, exposing the environmental footprint of data consumption.
Expanded Data Program – Critical Data Studio
Expanded Data Program – Critical Data Studio
Summary
The Expanded Data Program by Critical Data Studio explores artistic and experimental practices that expand the concept of data beyond extraction and quantification. It gathers projects that question how data can be felt, embodied, or resisted, offering alternative epistemologies to algorithmic control.
Database Cultures – Irmielin Project
Database Cultures – Irmielin Project
Summary
A research platform exploring databases as cultural, political, and aesthetic infrastructures, examining how data systems shape meaning and power.
Data Justice Lab
Data Justice Lab
Summary
Data Justice Lab investigates the relationship between datafication and social justice. Through research, advocacy, and collaboration, it examines how data systems reproduce inequality and explores pathways toward fairness, transparency, and collective rights in the digital age.
Datakorn
Datakorn
Summary
Data visualization and research studio presenting projects and resources.
Data Not Found
Data Not Found
Summary
Data Not Found is a research and storytelling project about missing, incomplete, or invisible datasets. It explores how data absences shape knowledge, bias, and representation-inviting us to rethink what is measured, archived, and forgotten in digital systems.
Data & Society
Data & Society
Summary
An independent research institute examining how data-centric technologies shape society, producing critical studies on algorithmic harms, labor exploitation, platform power, and emerging authoritarian dynamics.
UNMAKE Lab
UNMAKE Lab
Summary
A series of research-driven art-projects that explore AI, ecology, disaster zones and the “non-future,” using speculative datasets and machine-vision to critique extraction and environmental collapse.
Karen D. Hao
Karen D. Hao
Summary
Journalist/researcher covering technology, AI, and society.
Exploring Cop Data
Exploring Cop Data
Summary
An independent research note analyzing publicly available datasets on policing in the U.S. It exposes the opacity and fragmentation of law enforcement data, advocating for open, accountable infrastructures to confront systemic violence and state surveillance.