About Enter

Enter is an experimental video-conferencing platform for online and hybrid meetings in the cultural field. The platform takes inspiration from other digital culture projects and open-source software that is being used for meeting online and producing content. Enter now functions as a conversation piece for experiments like online artist residencies. Within a wider political perspective data ownership and creating our own tech is more on the agenda, making Enter at the forefront of the discussion. While also being a functional platform for small group gatherings and producing online events for Het Nieuwe Instituut. The platform is created through design by development. Meaning that all involved in the project are part of the development process, making sure all steps are aligned with the concept and ideologies behind Enter.

ENTER_Milan during Supersalone, the 2021 edition of Salone del Mobile. The public programme, that took place both online and in Milan, reflects on the current state of the design field and the challenges ahead.

By building and designing our own platform we can better understand what happens behind the surface of Big Tech platforms. Digital culture is not only what we see on our screens, there are many assumptions and ideologies built into the platforms we use every day. Platforms like Zoom and Teams we mostly use as tools for online meetings and events are not built for culture, but for profit. These platforms are also very formal in its design, meaning that it cannot be appropriated by its users and the experience of a job interview and seeing your friends is the same.

Enter will not be the answer to all the issues we encounter using these platforms, but can shine light on them. Zoom and Teams are built with millions of dollars and with huge teams of developers. But Enter can function as a statement that says we can design and develop our own tools for our own good and for the cultural field as a whole. By rethinking ways of online communication, we can also redesign these interactions from the ground up.

Find out more about Enter by watching the video below, in which project manager Florian van Zandwijk talks in depth about the platform with Margarita Osipian and Lillian Stolk of The Hmm, an inclusive platform for internet cultures. The conversation about Enter is part of The Hmm’s Alternative Platforms dossier.