Man Wants to 'Print the Internet'

Art project to honor of Aaron Swartz
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted May 31, 2013 9:48 AM CDT
Man Wants to 'Print the Internet'
Keep going, buddy.   (Shutterstock)

It sounds impossible—because, frankly, it almost certainly is—but Kenneth Goldsmith wants to print out the Internet. Or, more accurately, he wants you and everyone you know to print out whatever portion of the Internet strikes your fancy and mail it to him. "We just want shitloads of paper," the poet/conceptual artist writes on the project's Tumblr page. "We're literally looking for folks to print out the entire Internet. We have over 500 square meters of space to fill."

This is, as you might have guessed, not a practical endeavor; it's an exhibition for the LABOR gallery in Mexico City, intended to honor hacker/activist Aaron Swartz. "The amount of what he liberated was enormous," Goldsmith tells Yahoo Tech. He admits that the whole Internet, or even a real chunk, would "overwhelm any space," but he wants to "literally materialize the amount of information around us." He's hoping the result will live on after the exhibition closes, traveling and growing—but if not, it'll all be recycled. (More Kenneth Goldsmith stories.)

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