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For the last 17 years CAN has been tirelessly shaping conversations surrounding technology, society, and critical making. Boasting a vast library of 4,000+ meticulously curated projects that reflect the evolving landscape of creative technology, and a community of thousands of members that continue to contribute ideas and perspectives from across disciplines and geographies, CAN stands resolute as an unparalleled resource—and an influential voice—for students, educators, and practitioners around the globe.
Founded in 2008, as the brief era of the open web was coming to an end, and a handful of tech monopolies were busy engineering platforms that would grow to dominate the global network, CAN was among the few beacons of hope that continued to signal that other networks are possible, and crucially, that such networks can survive the big tech hegemony. CAN has not only persisted in this, but bloomed into a network of thousands of artists, designers, writers, curators, educators, students, hackers, and makers distributed across the globe.
Beyond accruing the priceless community archives documenting culturally significant works over the last 17 years, through connecting a community of engaged thinkers and practitioners across the global network, CAN helps to instigate, facilitate, and sustain important conversations about technology, society, and critical making. Over the years, CAN has helped uncover, foreground, and contextualise noteworthy work within online and offline spaces, work that has then been featured on the festival and gallery circuit, or developed as academic research.
Beyond accruing the priceless community archives documenting culturally significant works over the last 17 years, through connecting a community of engaged thinkers and practitioners across the global network, CAN helps to instigate, facilitate, and sustain important conversations about technology, society, and critical making. Over the years, CAN has helped uncover, foreground, and contextualise noteworthy work within online and offline spaces, work that has then been featured on the festival and gallery circuit, or developed as academic research.
Development Log / Visit the V6 Roadmap
29/07
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28/05
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30/03
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26/02
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28/01
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11/12
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27/11
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29/10
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31/07
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26/06
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69.52%
Current: 1,738 Members (69.52% achieved)
Goal: 2,500 Members (30.48% still needed)
▲ 69.52%
Thanks in no small part to CAN, many of the thinkers and practitioners featured on its pages over the years have been propelled towards success. With CAN as a launchpad, many of them no longer need its nurturing hand. It is certainly no hyperbole to state that CAN has played a notable part in the lives of many of the leading figures in the art/tech space and so has shaped the evolution of the practice.
What continues to be remarkable, is what can be achieved on a tiny budget (and no budget at all for the first 10 years). No venture capital or billionaire media moguls here. No big Tech, no growth imperatives, or toxic extractive and exploitative business models. CAN is funded by its members. It is run by humans for humans. It operates entirely without machinic automation, without algorithmic curation or filtering, and without a content publishing system where the users do all the work. Countless hours are poured into researching, curating, editing, developing and maintaining this platform each month, every month. As such, CAN is the polar opposite of the attention-at-all-costs dogma of platform capital. It presents an increasingly rare alternative network and content space. It is a site where human subjectivity and critical thought remain untrammelled by the Tyranny of the Recommendation Algorithm, unpolluted by bot-shit, spam ad campaigns, or AI slop.
What continues to be remarkable, is what can be achieved on a tiny budget (and no budget at all for the first 10 years). No venture capital or billionaire media moguls here. No big Tech, no growth imperatives, or toxic extractive and exploitative business models. CAN is funded by its members. It is run by humans for humans. It operates entirely without machinic automation, without algorithmic curation or filtering, and without a content publishing system where the users do all the work. Countless hours are poured into researching, curating, editing, developing and maintaining this platform each month, every month. As such, CAN is the polar opposite of the attention-at-all-costs dogma of platform capital. It presents an increasingly rare alternative network and content space. It is a site where human subjectivity and critical thought remain untrammelled by the Tyranny of the Recommendation Algorithm, unpolluted by bot-shit, spam ad campaigns, or AI slop.
CAN started out as a small online blog many moons ago and developed into an essential network
– Mark Webster
CAN is responsible for promoting and cataloguing the digital art scene of the last 15 years while it was happening under our eyes
– Andreas Gysin
CAN is as close as our community has to a “journal of record”—with an archive of nearly 5,000 articles documenting new media artworks dating back to 2008
– Golan Levin
What these guys are doing for the creative community is basically a public service
– Regine Debatty
By staying small, staying humble, and keeping close to the land, CAN operates to ensure the nutrients of cultural production flow back into the soil of our collective culture, rather than being captured and syphoned into the necropolitan archives of big-tech and the bottomless pockets of hyper-concentrated capital. CAN is animated by its members not by compute-clusters. It serves the global community of creators and thinkers, not Capital.
Where Platform Capital (Facebook, X, LinkedIn, Instagram) fosters polarisation, isolation, and blame, CAN promotes discourse, connection, collectivity, and solidarity. Its members rely upon CAN to continue to provide this invaluable alternative network, but CAN also depends upon its members to support it in this effort. CAN and other alternative networks collectivity light the path towards a more connected, less isolated, and more equitable future.
You can support our efforts in two ways: by becoming a member of our community or by donating. With an individual membership priced at only $20 per year, billed annually, you unlock a plethora of features and help us fight the attention-at-all-costs dogma of platform capital. Alternatively, your generous donations go directly to CAN, aiding us in keeping this platform alive, hopefully for years to come!
Thank you!
Read more about our Roadmap for 2025-2026.
Where Platform Capital (Facebook, X, LinkedIn, Instagram) fosters polarisation, isolation, and blame, CAN promotes discourse, connection, collectivity, and solidarity. Its members rely upon CAN to continue to provide this invaluable alternative network, but CAN also depends upon its members to support it in this effort. CAN and other alternative networks collectivity light the path towards a more connected, less isolated, and more equitable future.
You can support our efforts in two ways: by becoming a member of our community or by donating. With an individual membership priced at only $20 per year, billed annually, you unlock a plethora of features and help us fight the attention-at-all-costs dogma of platform capital. Alternatively, your generous donations go directly to CAN, aiding us in keeping this platform alive, hopefully for years to come!
Thank you!
Read more about our Roadmap for 2025-2026.
