<nettime> the-light-of-the.world

[John Preston <wcerfgba@riseup.net>]

Hello all,

Today I am launching a new piece that I hope you will find interesting.
The work is self-documenting, and I shall copy that in below. Any
feedback is greatly appreciated. :)


http://the-light-of-the.world/


    You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be
hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead
they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.
In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see
your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

Matthew 5:14-16 (NIV)

This website, the-light-of-the.world, serves as a humanist
interpretation of this passage, by using the computer display as a lamp.
The background is not completely black, but instead calculated from the
number of visitors currently on the website. As more visitors arrive,
the colour changes from black to white, increasing the brightness of the
display/lamp.

We are the-light-of-the.world. We each bring light into this world. We
shine brightest when we all shine together.

The website is set up so that it will reach full brightness at 8 billion
visitors, and the United Nations projects that the world human
population will reach 8 billion people around the year 2021 [1].
However, the International Telecommunication Union estimates that since
the end of 2018 only 3.9 billion people have access to the Internet [2].
In this respect, the-light-of-the.world is both aspirational and
critical. Fully lighting the lamp is a concrete goal and the product of
significant collective action, but it is not possible until we close the
digital divide.

[1]: https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/
[2]: https://www.itu.int/en/mediacentre/Pages/2018-PR40.aspx


Thanks,
John
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