The exhibition website for ICA Boston’s Art in the Age of the Internet had plenty of material close at hand. It was already doing a number of the things under discussion.

The exhibition’s five themes were “Networks and Circulation,” “Hybrid Bodies,” “Virtual Worlds,” “States of Surveillance,” and “Performing the Self.” With Wkshps, we designed an experience for each, drawing on data moving through the internet around it. These included recent images from Wikimedia Commons, live population statistics, a globe mapping other visitors’ locations and IP addresses, a gallery feed, and an avatar space where visitors could move among the traces of people who had come before them.

A ticker across the top of each page exposed information visible to the server through HTTP requests. Visiting the site meant supplying some of its content. Looking around was already a form of participation, whether or not you had anything to contribute.

The typography introduced some minor vandalism to familiar conventions: Courier with the serifs cut off for the text, and a monospaced Didone for headings.