_Bottom Line
Instagram: _bottomline
Email: [email protected]
_Bottom Line is a not for profit educational project designed as a tool for online research and distribution of information that already exists online. Powered by Are.na and curated by artists, researchers and documentarians, _Bottom Line is a new experiment in online research through curated topics and themes, the sharing of online or free to use tools, and the discussion of current events, topics and issues from the around the world and online. Inviting guests as curators to take part in an online collaboration of accessible research in multiple areas of discussion through shared reading lists and curated research, utilising links and sources that already exist online; an educational platform of sharing ideas, perspectives and conversation.
A project by Public–Source, _Bottom Line acts as the back-bone to all of our projects and personal research interests. In the name of transparency, we aim to showcase and share all of our topic and concept research for various projects both upcoming and released. We believe in celebrating and supporting the dedication and effort that goes into research led projects, that this commitment should not go unseen. Through publishing our own, we invite others to do so through our reading lists and curated topics, to take part in an open source education tool. Likewise, _Bottom Line acts as a mission statement behind all of our projects at Public–Source that, by definition, the final total of an account or balance sheet is not the fundamental and most important factor.
1) What do you first remember most fondly about using the internet?:
Chatting with girls on AIM and exploring strange spaces. The internet always felt sort of taboo, I lived in a pretty strict household, so it was always a place where I could escape that.
2) What do you think has changed the most since your early years on the web?:
I think if I were to have kept track of the total number of different websites I visited per year in 2005 versus now, the difference would be staggering. We are siloed into like 3 content aggregators competing for our attention. The web simultaneously feels sanitised and hostile in all the
wrong ways. Whereas it used to feel kind of punk for a kid growing up in a strict family…its now the suburban shopping mall I used to throw bananas at ( true story ).
3) How do you use the internet and what do you mostly use it for?:
News, computer programming, and shitty self promotion. I perform for twitter. It’s not me, it’s
how I get work.
4) What is your biggest concern about the internet and/or the future of the web?:
Every action anyone takes on the network is labor that produces value for someone else. This much is obvious…your behaviour online is the raw material for decision making systems to become more efficient in order to ultimately make other people money. This has created a feedback loop that is exacerbating the worst instincts of society…with the result being that the nature of work, the way we treat the environment, the way we treat each other… have all been reoriented towards apocalyptic efficiency. My biggest concern isn’t about the future of the web… its about
the future the web has created.
5) What would you change about the way we use the internet or how it is controlled now?:
I am reading a book where the internet just disappears. I’m not ready for apocalypse, I’d be the
first to be eaten.
I was going to write an answer about p2p and the hope of building our own networks for our own communities…but now I’m thinking…what if we just made the internet we have less efficient. A slow, clunky thing that is fully at odds with “move fast and break things”. What would that do?
6) Link your favourite website (This could be a link to a site that you love now or simply a site that
you loved from your internet childhood):
This is the only website that should exist: http://slowhotcomputer.com/
1) What do you first remember most fondly about using the internet?:
I remember being allowed to play y8 games on my mother’s PC when I was around 7, it was very exciting, but I wasn’t really aware of the fact that it was the internet, I did not know what it implied or contained. As I got older, I explored more things on the internet like funny videos on youtube or being able to search GTA cheats on google.
2) What do you think has changed the most since your early years on the web?:
I think the internet has become accessible and possible for more people. The internet has changed a lot over the last years, the internet contains much more information and data than it did. Also, people have become more used to using the internet. These things have unfortunately also made it possible for people wanting to earn money to manipulate and affect users of the internet in commercial and sly ways.
3) How do you use the internet and what do you mostly use it for?:
I am an average internet user. I write and read messages, watch movies, make schoolwork, play games, read about different topics, buy things, sell thing, watch porn and upload music. But really, you could call all that some kind of communication. Between common people or between a company and potential buyers. I mostly communicate on the internet.
4) What is your biggest concern about the internet and/or the future of the web?:
My biggest concern is that the technology of the internet will evolve to an extend where it becomes either too hard to control, too easy to take advantage with, or too humanlike. These things would make it more powerful than human, not necessarily on its own, but in the wrong hands.
5) What would you change about the way we use the internet or how it is controlled now?:
I think the internet should be more non-biased. There is too much content based on recent activity, and that makes people too aliened or homogenic. It harms the ability to discover new things, exchange opinions, be surprised and evolve both socially, intellectually and aesthetically. Also, I think that these tendencies are caused by the money people, they make it too easy to repeat habits like seeing the same kind of series, listening to the same music, buying the same clothes or even following the same type of people on Instagram.
6) Link your favourite website (This could be a link to a site that you love now or simply a site that you loved from your internet childhood):
Youtube.com - so much content to educate, inspire and inform
https://sahelsounds.bandcamp.com - good music
https://filmcentralen.dk - danish online library for movies
https://www.viking.virkelighed.dk/vaaben.htm - funny and inspiring
sorry for not choosing one website only
1) What do you first remember most fondly about using the internet?:
My first memory of the internet is my Mum showing me that music video where they’re dancing on treadmills. (OK Go - Here It Goes Again)
2) What do you think has changed the most since your early years on the web?:
That it’s know longer considered a nerdy hobby for caricatured dweebs in American films. Now if someone says they know how to code its not assumed that they’re also social rejects.
Think about Internet dating, it's no longer considered for lonely weirdos, but everyone uses it and it's really normal.
3) How do you use the internet and what do you mostly use it for?:
Reading newspapers and magazine. Can’t afford to buy them properly but I sneak free trials and other peoples memberships all the time.
4) What is your biggest concern about the internet and/or the future of the web?:
The fact that there are loads of websites that look like legitimate media sites but actually any random fuck-head can write on them and there’s no one there to point out its an insane conspiracy theory.
5) What would you change about the way we use the internet or how it is controlled now?:
Almost anyone who says they need twitter for work is lying unless they’re actually trying to start the Arab Spring or lives in China. So I would make everyone who wants a social media account to have to apply like they’re trying to get one of those blue plaques on a building. Only really interesting people with jobs that actually need it are allowed one.
6) Link your favourite website (This could be a link to a site that you love now or simply a site that you loved from your internet childhood):
It’s a boring answer but
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page