The Internet on paper

Image: http://www.mondotheque.be/wiki/images/e/e6/Screenshot_from_2014-10-31_16-21-52.png
Caption: From industrial heartland to the Internet age (screencapture). Promotional video published by The Mundanum, 2014
    
In 1934, documentalist Paul Otlet wrote: "Humanity is at a turning point in its history. The mass of  available  information is formidable. New instruments are necessary for simplifying and condensing it, or the intellect will never know how to overcome the difficulties which overwhelm it, nor realise the progress that it glimpses and to which it aspires". Otlet considered radio, cinema, micro-fiche, phonograph and television all worthy substitutes for the book as information carrier. He envisaged them interconnected into a 'radiated library', an intellectual multi-media machine that would support the publication, consultation and creation of knowledge.
Since 1993, the remains of Otlet's extensive collection of documents are being cared for by The Mundaneum archive center in Mons. Located in a former mining region in the south of Belgium, Mons is also right next to Google's largest datacenter in Europe. Due to the recent rebranding of Otlet as 'founding father of the  Internet', and 'visionary inventor of Google on paper', the Mundaneum has called international attention to his oeuvre. In return, the Internet giant thankfully accepted the gift of posthumous roots, and adopted The Mundaneum.
'The Internet on paper' traces various narrations of media in and around the work of Paul Otlet. It is a contribution in the context of Mondothèque, a platform for experiments by artists, archivists and activists concerned about the way knowledge is produced and distributed today.
http://mondotheque.be


context: http://bek.no/projects/458-the-extensions-of-many-seminars-on-media-aesthetics?locale=en

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the legacy of Paul Otlet.


  Not surprising since Mons is conveniently located next to Google's largest datacenter in Europe.


For the internet giant, discovering posthumous roots in a francophone corner of Europe is convenient too.


This presentation explores the 

As  the responsible archive institute caring for Otlet's extensive card  catalog, personal papers and various archives started to put emphasis on  the possibility of Otlet foreseeing the interent, an internet on paper  or even a Google on paper. For the internet giant, the creation of a  postumous father of information technology was convenient and moreover,  creating francophone roots in a corner of Europe. 



traces many amalgamates of media and history, geography 



The extensions of many
exploring the ambiguity of the notion of media from an aesthetic and technological perspective


Since Google adopted the remains of the Mundaneum in mons, equasions between the oeuvre of the obstinate documentalist Paul Otlet and The Internet have proliferated, creating a postumous father of information technology and moreover, creating francophone roots in a corner of francophone Europe. 

The internet on paper, 
internet giant constructing a European, eand even better, francophone pre-history.
Retro-construction of lineage
Weaving through materialisations of these ideas and 
the First Concept of the World Wide Web ... Google in Paperform

“Humanity is at a turning point in its history. The mass of  available information is formidable. New instruments are necessary for simplifying  and condensing it or the intellect will never know how to overcome the difficulties which overwhelm it, nor realise the progress that it glimpses and to which it aspires,” (Paul Otlet, Traité de Documentation, 1934, p.430).