ir_06_glossary
Cable Landing StationPhysical facilities where submarine fiber-optic cables emerge from the ocean and connect to terrestrial networks, representing critical nodes where undersea infrastructure becomes visible.
Chokepoints
Narrow corridors or concentrated junction points through which most global internet traffic must pass, revealing how seemingly distributed networks actually depend on limited pathways.
CLIWOC (Climatological Database for the World's Oceans)
An EU-funded database digitizing ship logbook entries from European colonial archives (1662-1855), documenting historical maritime routes under imperial regimes.
Imperial Routes / Roots / Routs
The central wordplay of the project: routes (pathways taken by ships and cables), roots (landing points where infrastructure is grounded), and routs (disruptions and erasures experienced by colonized populations). These three meanings converge to show how contemporary internet infrastructure extends rather than breaks from colonial patterns.
Landing Points
Geographic locations where submarine cables make landfall, many of which correspond to former colonial ports that served similar functions for imperial maritime trade.
Residue
The visual trace left behind after interactive elements fade, emphasizing how infrastructure persists as accumulated pattern rather than disappearing cleanly.
Sea Lanes
Established maritime corridors repeatedly traveled by commercial and military vessels, which under imperial systems became enforced patterns now often followed by submarine cable routes.
Subsea Cables
Undersea fiber-optic cables carrying approximately 99% of intercontinental internet traffic, representing the material infrastructure that contradicts popular "cloud" metaphors for digital communication.