Toggle is an exhibition platform authored by the collective neverhitsend. It is a customized Chrome browser plugin that allows users to overlay content atop any already existing web page, creating a hidden metapage of text, images, hyperlinks, and other information that is only visible to those with the plugin installed.
Toggle allows its users to explore the constitutive elements of internet-based communication—namely the way in which this platform creates possibilities for interacting with other platforms. Eleven invited fellows have used Toggle to develop and share work that engages with the existing content of the site being over-written. The plugin performs multiple roles as publishing platform, research archive, or as a tool to corroborate the information on existing sites. Like graffiti in the streets, the metapages revealed by Toggle can both challenge visibility by defacing or accentuating existing content, or by generating alternative information. For some, the metapage is a way to display critical texts or interviews that interact with existing webpages through poetic interventions; for others, it is as a cache for artworks, interviews, and research.
Any user who has installed the plugin will be able to toggle between versions of a site’s original content and the content contributed by the participating fellows. The purpose of this practice is not to expose a hidden sub-domain of the internet, but to produce a para-domain: a space for language and communication that is unafraid, that celebrates marginal spaces. The project began with an increased awareness of the extent of digital-surveillance not just by governmental bodies, but by the very digital infrastructure of the internet: its markup languages, tags, IP addresses, and other minable data.
Toggle will be publicly released by neverhitsend at the 21st International Symposium on Electronic Art from August 14–18, 2015 in Vancouver, B.C.