I recently posted the table of contents and a chronological list of network entries that will appear in Other Networks: A Radical Technology Sourcebook. As I try to make clear in the introduction, most entries also include examples of experiments with or on these networks because we often don’t know just how compelling a given network can be until we see artists exploring its limits and possibilities. Not surprisingly, however, just as we rarely understand how networks actually work, from the moment we send to the moment we receive, we also rarely attend to the underlying workings of media art. Stories abound of how, for example, artists from the 1970s and 1980s plugged this into that which resulted in certain fascinating outputs; but details are often frustratingly lacking or altogether absent on how the connections took place, even when the ‘how’ is exactly the point. To that end, I have also tried to include network diagrams and technical details for these experiments wherever possible.

Below is a chronological list of these experiments. Sometimes each experiment only gets a sentence of explanation; sometimes they get two or three paragraphs. But they all include source material so readers can always learn more for themselves. Readers will also note a disturbing lack of women and people of color until the late 1970s, indicating deep problems with the history of access to telecommunications, with deeply biased systems for recognition and acknowledgement, with my own limitations preventing me from digger harder and deeper into the historical record…all of which points to all of the work that remains to be done!

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1896: Thaddeus Cahill, Telharmonium / Telephone [34]

1922: László Moholy-Nagy, telephone pictures / Telephone [34]

1933: F.T. Marinetti and Fortunato Depero, experimental broadcast / Radio Broadcast [17]
1939: Orson Welles, “War of the Worlds” / Radio Broadcast [17]

1939: Ente Italiano per le Audizioni Radiofoniche (EIAR), experimental broadcasts / Broadcast Television [47]

1955: David Condon, frequency hacking / Telephone [34]

1961: Infrared Industries, Astro-Phone / Infrared Communication [9]

1962: Ray Johnson, mail art / Postal System [44]

1964: Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF), Der Goldene Schuss / Broadcast Television [47]
1965: Nettie and Isaiah Sellers, CB radio networks for civil rights organizers / Two-Way Radio [20] 

1968: Hanna Weiner, Signal Flag Poems / Flag Signaling [7]

1968-1969: N.E. Thing Co. (Iain and Ingrid Baxter,) telex and telecopier works / Telex [39]
1969: John Lennon and Yoko Ono, skywriting / Skywriting [5]

1969: John Giorno, Dial-a-Poem / Telephone [34]

1971: Nintendo, Light Telephone / Infrared Communication [9]

1971: Videofreex, Lanesville TV / Pirate Television [25]

1971: Salvador Allende, the Popular Unity government, and Stafford Beer, Project Cybersyn / Telex [39]

1972: Don WA6IR, “Peace Through Victory“ / Radioteletype [16.2]

1972: Chris Burden, TV Hijack / Broadcast Television [47]

1972: Experimental Television Center, “Access” / Cable Television [48]

1973: Lee Felsenstein, Efrem Lipkin, Ken Colstad, Jude Hilhon, Mark Szpakowski, and Resource One, Community Memory / Time-Sharing Network [50]

1976: Radio Alice / Microbroadcast [27]

1976: Jaime Davidovich, Artists’ Television Network / Cable Television [48]

1977: Max Neuhaus, Radio Net / Radio Broadcast [17]

1977: Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz, “Satellite Arts Project” / Communications Satellite [32]

1977: Liza Béar and Keith Sonnier, “Send/Receive Satellite Network” / Communications Satellite [32] 

1978: Library of Congress, interlibrary loan / Slow Scan Television [23]

1979: Bill Bartlett and the Direct Media Association, “Pacific Rim” / Slow Scan Television [23]
1979: Choose Your Own Adventure series / Book [43]

1980: Bill Bartlett and the Direct Media Association, “Artists’ Use of Telecommunications” / Slow Scan Television [23]

1980: Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus / Book [43] 

1980: Pierre Moretti, “Graphic Variations on Telidon” / Teletext [51]

1981: Paper Tiger TV, “Communications Update” / Cable Television [48]

1981: Tom Klinkowstein, “Telecommunications via Facsimile” / Telefacsimile [37]

1982: Alison Knowles, Bohnen Sequenzen / Radio Broadcast [17]

1982: Nederlandse Omroep Stichting, BASICODE broadcast / Radio Broadcast [17]

1982: Robert Adrian, “The World in 24 Hours” / Telefacsimile [37]

1983: Joe Tozer, Cheryl Ladd photograph transmission / Radio Broadcast [17]

1983: Tetsuo Kogawa, “Radio Home Run” / Microbroadcast [27]

1983: Mario Ramiro and Jose W. Garcia, “Clones: A Simultaneous Radio, Television and Videotex Network” / Videotex [52] 

1984: Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz, Electronic Café / Time-Sharing Network [50]

1985: Eduardo Kac, Reabracadabra / Videotex [52]

1987: Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz, Electronic Café International / Videophone [38]
1987: Olivier Auber, Poietic Generator / Videotex [52]

1988: Digital Art Exchange (DAX), “Intercities São Paulo / Pittsburgh” / Slow Scan Television [23]

1988: Mario Ramiro and Eduardo Kac, “Retrato Suposto-Rosto Roto” / Telefacsimile [37]
1990: Eduardo Kac, “Interfaces” / Slow Scan Television [23]

1990: Bill Fontana, “Landscape Soundings” / Microwave Radio-Relay [31]

1990: David Waitzman, “IP over Avian Carriers” / Pigeon Post [44.1]

1999: Eugenio Tisselli, MIDIpoet / Bluetooth [30]

1992: Van Gogh TV, “Piazza Virtuale” / Videophone [38]

2002: Telestreet / Pirate Television [25]

2005: Germaine Koh, “Relay” / Signal Lamp [10]

2005: neuroTransmitter (Angel Negarez and Valerie Tevere), 12 Miles Out / Pirate Radio [18]
2006: Jon Brumit, “Talking Homes” / Microbroadcast [27]

2007: Katie Pearson, “4’33”“ / Earth-Moon-Earth Communication [16.7]

2007: Kristin Haring, “Subtle Distress” / Electrical Telegraph [33]

2010: Daniela de Paulis, OPTICKS / Earth-Moon-Earth Communication [16.7]

2010, 2014:  Satellite Art Project, ARTSAT1, ARTSAT1: INVADER, ARTSAT2: DESPATCH / Amateur Radio Satellite [16.6]

2011: Friends of the Highline and Kim Beck, skywriting / Skywriting [5]

2012: Markus Schmeiduch, Ana Catharina Marques, and Konstantinos Frantzis, “#CPHSIGNALS” / Signal Lamp [10]

2012: Danja Vasiliev, “Netless” / Wi-Fi [29]

2012: Dan Phiffer, OCCUPY.HERE / Wi-Fi [29]

2013: NASA, Mona Lisa image transmission / Laser Communication [14]

2013:  Anna Friz, Radiotelegraph / Radiotelegraphy [16.1]

2013: GOTO80, Raquel Meyers, and Possan, “Datagården” / Teletext [51]

2014: Ebru Kurbak and Irene Posch, “Knitted Radio” / Microbroadcast [27]

2014: Open Garden, Firechat / Bluetooth [30]

2014: Philip Peters and David Rueter, “Barbed Wire Fence Telephone” / Fence Phones [41]

2015: Julian Oliver, “Stealth Cell Tower” / Cellular Network [49]

2016: Brannon Dorsey, “Holy Pager” / Pager [21]

2016: Human Rights Foundation, “Flash Drives for Freedom” / Sneakernet [45]

2017: Roel Roscam Abbing, “spacekeet” / Amateur Radio Satellite [16.6]

2018: Nicholas A. Knouf, “they transmitted continuously / but our times rarely aligned / and their signals dissipated in the aether” / Software Defined Radio [28]

2020-2021: Lucy Helton, WEFAX: Life Began on Earth in Hydrothermal Vents / Radiofax [19]
2021: Radio Amatrices (Audrey Briot, Afroditi Psarra, Adriana Knouf, and Sasha Engelmann), “FemSat” / Amateur Radio Satellite [16.6]

2021: Thomas Ashcraft, “Meteor Fireballs in Light and Sound” / Meteor Burst Communication [22]

2022: Wellesley Amateur Radio Society, “WARS LoRa Birdhouse Project” / Amateur Packet Radio [16.7]

2022: Floris Van Hoof, “Antenna” / Software Defined Radio [28]