Information Mesh: A Web Platform Celebrating the 30th Anniversary of the World Wide Web. Photo Myleen Hollero for swissnex San Francisco.

Infomesh is a web platform celebrating the 30th anniversary of the World Wide Web that explores social, technical, cultural and legal facts throughout interactive timelines and visualizations. The project was realized by Media & Interaction Design students at ECAL/University of Art and Design, Lausanne. Switzerland. The project began in October 2018 during a one-week workshop in partnership with swissnex San Francisco, where students visited key partners, such as the Wikimedia Foundation and the Internet Archive, and began developing the project.

The timeline of the Infomesh screen is touch-sensitive. Photo by Myleen Hollero for swissnex San Francisco.

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. You can experience the project online, as well as in the installation box shown above: find it at infomesh.org.

My role was in conceiving the project, which was then taken on by the class at ECAL. While the visual and interactive components of the piece come from their side, I was able to contribute a significant amount of research to the individual timelines, tracking down links to relevant Wikipedia articles and ensuring Internet Archive links for external materials. I worked to secure timelines of the open web from the Wikimedia Foundation, Internet Archive, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, all of which are included in the timelines found on the site.

The project made its debut as part of the “Future of the Open Web” track of the Web Conference in San Francisco on May 16, 2019. For its inaugural run, a special exhibition edition has been created for display at the swissnex Gallery, but the project lives online 24 hours a day at infomesh.org.

In addition, we launched the event with a Birthday Party for the World Wide Web as part of the 2019 Web Conference, which was conceived as an immersive experience of the infomesh project, with balloons printed with Internet terminology and a (deliberately lo-fi) birthday cake with an edible print of Tim Berners-Lee’s first desktop server, which all in attendance gathered around to sing “Happy Birthday” to the Web.

Birthday Cake for the WWW. Photo by Myleen Hollero for swissnex San Francisco.

One of the many balloons printed with words from the WWW, decorations for the swissnex San Francisco celebration of the open web. Photo by Myleen Hollero for swissnex San Francisco.

Infomesh Team

ECAL Faculty

Vincent Jacquier, Pauline Saglio, Laura Perrenoud, Tibor Udvari, Pietro Alberti

swissnex Team

Benjamin Bollmann, Mary Ellyn Johnson, Eryk Salvaggio

ECAL Students

Al Zouabi 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

Volker Eckl and Jan Gerlach, Wikimedia Foundation.
Amir Saber Esfahani, Internet Archive.
With the support of the Canton of Vaud.

Infomesh (2019)

Infomesh Team