cl0ud☁️ is an interactive website and a play on words(like cloud computing and cloud-gazing) that suggests the materiality of the web as a built and contested environment and also anonymously connects visitors across governmental Internet censor regulations. Through their interaction with the work, visitors can generate a collective audio and visual experience that also makes it possible to provide uncensored Internet access for people located in places where the Internet is censored.
Prototype (only working with internet speed here): https://mhr1235.github.io/cl0ud/
Detailed Description:
cl0ud☁️ is an interactive website and a play on words(like cloud computing)that suggests the materiality of the physical infrastructure, technological capabilities, and geopolitical frameworks underlying the Internet.
Volumetric clouds, generated by browser-native WebGL, and raymarching functions simulate atmospheric cloud phenomena in response to changing real-time physical network data that manifest as visual and audio effects in the browser.
On the back-end, cl0ud☁️also functions as a Snowflake Tor proxy node to allow visitors to the installation to share their bandwidth with someone in a country that censor the internet.
cl0ud☁️ reframes nostalgic cloud-gazing by creating a browser space where the often obfuscated physical realities of the internet can’t be separated from being online, and anonymously connecting visitors across governmental Internet censor regulations. Through their interaction with the work, they can generate a collective audio and visual experience that also will make it possible to provide uncensored Internet access for people located in places where this isn’t possible. It’s a new form of collective digital cloud gazing.
Network Architecture:
Terms like ‘cloud-computing’, ‘cloud-based’, ‘cloud-storage’, conceive of the Internet as a disconnected ephemeral manifestation that floats above people and the earth. This obfuscates the deliberately built environment of networks and dependent structures that support the ‘cloud’, and the often tension-filled negotiations that accompany web-browsing.
cl0ud☁️ sets up an online scenario that the underlying geopolitical structures of the web can’t be avoided by making evident technical data that is often hidden from users as visual and audio atmospheric weather effects. Data related to network functionality like tcp/ip, packet-sniffing, transport protocols, are often buried beneath the front-end UI/UX experience of the web. However, this kind of data reveals important information about how the internet is built, how it functions, and a changing field of government and corporate regulations and interests that speak to issues of software and sovereignty, internet freedom, and the right to privacy.
cl0ud☁️ accesses and uses this kind of network data to change the shape of the code-generated cloud visualization, it’s color, speed, audio and other simulated ‘weather’ conditions in real-time.
Sharing bandwidth:
On the back-end, the cl0ud☁️ installation will run a Snowflake Tor proxy server: https://snowflake.torproject.org/
Snowflake is a system that allows people from all over the world to access censored websites and applications:“Users in countries with web restrictions typically have to access the internet via a proxy if they want to circumvent the censorship. Tor offers a bridge service for this, called Snowflake. Volunteers all over the world run Snowflake proxies, which rely on WebRTC to establish peer-to-peer connections between web browsers.”
Currently, there are more than 60 countries globally that censor the Internet.
Visitors to the cl0ud☁️ installation can connect wirelessly via their mobile device and open a Tor node proxy for someone in a place that censors Internet access to bypass those restrictions. Every connected device will open another proxy so that Internet users in countries like Cuba, Iran, China, North Korea, Russia, can bypass Internet censors). The more visitors to the cl0ud☁️, the more proxies will be opened. The longer they stay connected, the longer those proxies will remain open for others to use.
Digital Cloud Gazing:
The cl0ud☁️visualizes underlying network activity this activity in the shape and form of the cloud simulation, surface tension, speed of the simulation. When users connect to share their bandwidth, they will experience graphic and audio representation of their connection. Through their activity, they can generate a collective audio and visual experience that also will make it possible to provide uncensored Internet access for people located remotely. It’s a new form of collective digital cloud gazing.