Imagining the Internet

What do you see when you try to imagine the internet? A spider web of countless web pages connected by a practically infinite series of strands? A galaxy, not unlike our own, with a central nucleus and swirling mass of stars and planets? A series of tubes? Maybe you'd prefer to imagine it as a series of computers, servers, wires and undersea cables that span the globe, or perhaps the internet exists in the 1s and 0s themselves, traveling to and fro at blinding speed.

It can be difficult to even visualize the internet as a whole due to its massive size and intangible nature and due to how closely it has been woven into the fabric of our daily lives. What was once transported over a series of wires now travels invisibly, magically through the air, connecting us instantly, everywhere. One cannot SEE the internet but it's all around us and growing larger every day.

As a digital artist, some of my favorite books and movies have involved visual interpretations of computer networks and the data screaming through them. In "The Matrix", humanity is trapped inside a virtual construct of reality which, to an observer, appears as strands of mysterious green characters on a screen. "Hackers" portrays the two-dimensional world of the computer hacker as a fantastical 3D universe filled with swirling numbers, letters, light and color that lives inside a series of giant transparent illuminated server towers called the "Gibson" (shown above). William Gibson, to which this fictional device is named, coined the term "cyberspace" and imagined a "matrix" of data represented by colorful 3D shapes which are hacked into by the main character Case in his first and most critically acclaimed novel, "Neuromancer."

While these visions of data as swirling lights traveling through the ether are entertaining, they lack actual substance and function. How might an actual 3D representation of the internet look and what possible uses could it have? That question is what led me towards starting this project. I intend on creating a virtual representation of the internet which differs from stylized versions in that it is created from actual internet traffic data. Global internet rankings, search analytics, percentage of global internet views and other datasets are available online (Alexa.com, for example). Obtaining the data is the easy part; interpreting, formatting, translating and displaying it in an visually appealing way is much more challenging.

This blog will follow the development of the 3DIV (3 Dimensional Internet Visualization) project, from concept to implementation. I will undoubtedly require assistance at some point due to my modicum of programming skills and the scale which I envision this project has the potential of becoming. Anyone interested in becoming involved can post a comment; anyone I know in person should be able to find my contact information.

- Jack