Fragile Connections

Interactive installation

*Seeing Stones and Spaces Beyond the Valley*, *II Bienal de Varsovia, Polonia [2022]*

Fragile Connections is an interactive installation and the outcome of an artistic research project by Nestor Siré and Steffen Köhn about SNET (Street Network), a vast grassroots computer network connecting tens of thousands of users across Cuba’s capital Havana. SNET allows users to play multiplayer video games, chat, send messages, debate in forums, share files, or host websites. It relies on a network of thousands of participants who collaboratively create, operate, and maintain its hardware and software infrastructure.

Our installation replicates the technological set-up of an SNET node and thus constitutes a fully functioning local area network (SNET actually developed out of private LAN parties in which Cuban video gamers first experimented with network technology). It allows audiences to connect with their smartphones to explore parts of the network themselves and view or download research documents about SNET’s history. It further consists of a three-channel video documenting a focus group interview with three admins about SNET’s rise, fall, and rebirth. This interview was conducted over one of the network’s TeamSpeak servers and recorded on their desktop screens. Further elements of the work are an infographic detailing SNET’s power dynamics and hierarchies and a set of stickers with icons and symbols that SNET members use to express their digital identities. These stickers allow visitors to performatively take on an SNET personality themselves.