The Network of Things

Coulton, Paul (2025) The Network of Things. In: The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of New Media Art : Volume 1:History and Theory. Bloomsbury, London. ISBN 9781474280679

Abstract

According to the Oxford English Dictionary the etymology of Network lies in the 1500’s when it was used to describe structures of lines and interstices giving the resemblance of a net. These early uses related to structures appearing in nature, in the tissues of animals and plants, as well as human-made materials or decorative patterns. In the early 1800 hundreds it started to be used to describe infrastructures such as railroads and transportation systems. This association with infrastructures continued alongside technological developments of telecommunications, electrical distribution, broadcasting, computing systems and the internet. The term use evolved in the late 1800s to describe interconnected groups of people and organisations. Whilst many on the infrastructures described have been used to connect people it was emergence of the of the social networking sites in the late 1990s that brought these two perspectives together and shifted the consideration of network from a topological structure to more fluid notion of interdependent and independent relationships that are subject to continuous reconfiguration. The rise of social networks also instigated a fetishization around the potential economic value of the data being produced in social networks. Data was also a driver for emergence of the so-called Internet of Things (IoT). The term ‘IoT’ is attributed to a presentation given by Kevin Ashton in the late 1990s, Ashton was a pioneer of the use of RFID technology (and its subsequent evolution into NFC) and saw it as one of the technologies that would facilitate the realisation of a future akin to Mark Weiser’s vision of ‘ubiquitous computing’. Initially the IoT was initially primarily concerned with tracking items through time and space on their earthy sojourn. Reflecting on what he originally meant, Ashton’s thoughts are resonant with contemporary discourse around the IoT. A significant factor in this is the potential for computers to autonomously collect, process, transmit, and act upon data as Aston reflected in 2009: “If we had computers that knew everything there was to know about things—using data they gathered without any help from us—we would be able to track and count everything, and greatly reduce waste, loss and cost”. However, the IoT has evolved and is now much more associated with the notion of ‘smart’ products and services sold under the promise of making our lives easier. What is frequently absent from these discussions is the tsunami of data which is generated through our interactions as we add millions of IoT products and services to our networks. This additional data is often combined with data from our online activities in social networks and shopping allowing increasingly detailed profiles of us to be generated. Our ever increasing entanglement within this Network of Things requires new ways of considering his space as well as offering potential new ways of creating and presenting media which is the primary focus of this chapter.