Other Networks

Other Networks is writer and researcher Lori Emerson's index of telecommunications networks that existed before and outside of the internet.



The internet as we know it is not a foregone conclusion. Indeed, the present corporatized, monolithic, surveilled state of our networked communications is just one possibility out of many, and there is radical promise in uncovering hidden alternatives. Other Networks is writer and researcher Lori Emerson's speculative index of telecommunications networks that existed before and outside of the internet, a catalog of networks in the broadest sense of the word: digital as well as analog, IRL as well as imagined, state-sponsored systems of control as well as homebrew communities in the footnotes of hacker culture. Featuring explanatory descriptions of each network, archival images, and original artwork and design by Robert Beatty, Other Networks documents historically alternative networks with a particular eye towards their experimental usage by artists and writers. The result is a boldly creative taxonomy of our networked world, a liberatory sourcebook for readers eager to escape the hegemony of technological history, and a lovingly designed guide to the freedoms and communal possibilities that have been lost along the way.