When the occupiers in Zuccotti Park began setting up tents, it was an inherently practical move. After cold, uncomfortable nights on tarps and huddled into sleeping bags (a situation imposed by a no-tent policy in the park, which was eventually not enforced), tents were a welcome way to make an occupied space more of a home, and closer to familiar conceptions of an established community.
But we need to understand tents as more than just tents.
Commentary about the Internet and the various communication services it provides, regularly fall into utopian or distopian visions of radically new worlds. The utopias tell of a future in which we are all continually connected in a seamless egalitarian web of techno-democracy. The distopian warnings describe overstimulated zombies shuffling from computer screen to smartphone, hermetically sealed in the echo chamber of their choosing. These predictions are equally unlikely to occur any time in the near future, and for one simple reason- Its really hard (and expensive) to get a stable internet connection in a park. more...
