CommunityBoxes (CB) are locally owned and controlled digital platforms. These let communities, individuals, etc, to share information safely and privately, and can be used to host common social and artistic activities.
Technically they local Pop-Up internet hubs. In a sense providing internet technology FOR a specific location and available ONLY in that location physically – not virtually. ie the box provides the technology there in the location, there is no attempt to locate users and deliver information from the internet as a whole based on their current location.
The strongly localised links of the technology gives a few advantages that distinguishes the Community Boxes:
* Because data is located in a very certain physical location, the ownership and control of that data is by the hands of the people in the location.
* Because the technology uses digital means in a physical location, it provides a new space to deliver the advantages of digital, yet adding a local value as that data can be experienced only in that location.
* People can use a wider range of technologies to connect with the boxes, and crucially, can use older/cheaper technologies. (because the data is not delivered via the web as a whole, hence no need to use high end technologies that will pick up where a user might be.)
The community boxes are an ongoing adaptation of “pirate boxes“.
We have a version working as a gallery. Details:
http://digihub.org.uk/communitybox-gallery-bombanes-brighton
One reply on “a bit about community boxes”
[…] this project, the core idea is to exchange artistic data/digital materials via community boxes between art and culture linked people in Palestine and residents of the Eternal Internet […]