net:25 | future - science - art

© Gerard Spee

In June 2015, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Internet in Austria and of the ACOnet, ACOnet organized the event trilogy net:25 | net:future, net:science, net:art.

In the Main Ceremonial Chamber of the University of Vienna, the two sections net:future and net:science took a look into the future of the Internet. Phil Zimmermann, Joanna Bryson, Bruce Sterling, Jessica Barker, Rafael Capurro, and Danese Cooper gave an insight into their visions of the future in three different panels.

The net:25 event trilogy finally culminated in the interactive music and dance performance net:art | near in the distance 2, which bridged the gap between performing arts and high-performance data networks. Rupert Huber, Rosa Sanchéz and Alain Baumann interacted with artists in Vienna, Ljubljana, Prague, Judenburg, Barcelona and New York.

Here is a short video summarizing the highlights of the net:25 conference:


650 Years of University of Vienna | 200 Years of TU Wien | 25 Years of Internet in Austria | 25 Years ofACOnet

net:25 was staged in cooperation with ISPA, the TU Wien and the Wiener Staatsoper.

The University of Vienna was celebrating its 650th anniversary in 2015 and also the TU Wien had its 200th anniversary. ACOnet joined the celebrations with its event trilogy net:25 | net:future, net:science, net:art because 25 years ago the foundation of the Austrian Internet was laid at the University of Vienna, and at the same time ACOnet was founded at the TU Vienna.

In 1990, ACOnet was established as a joint, vendor-independent communication infrastructure of the Austrian universities. In the same year, the first TCP/IP based 64kbit/s leased line connection from the University of Vienna to Geneva (CERN) and further on to the NSFnet (USA) commenced operations within the framework of the "European Academic Supercomputer Initiative". Hence, Austria was connected to "the Internet". Independently from these events, the preparations for founding EUnet GmbH took place, which in the following years assumed the role of the first commercial Internet Service Provider in Austria.

For more information about what exactly happened then, see two Futurezone articles (in German) which were published on the occasion of the 20th anniversary:     


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