Who says the internet is just for humans? Some might even argue that it’s made of cats, (there’s even a song about it). Sharks swim between internet cables, the Doge meme has increased breeding of the Shiba Inu, and petfluencers amass millions of followers whilst spreading animal advocacy. Researchers are using AI to decode whale language, and there’s even prototypes being built for a dog internet, a space for dog-to-dog connection mediated by technology.
Join us at The Hmm ON the Animal Internet at DOA to map the impact of the internet on non-human animals. As the largest pet shelter in the Netherlands, DOA helps more than 2000 stray cats and dogs per year. Don’t miss out on this unique opportunity to be with our furry friends alongside six artists, influencers, researchers, and makers, to explore internet culture beyond our own species. Limited in-person tickets available!
We’re excited to have Jeanine Kornmann, Senior Communications Specialist at DOA, helping us to put together a wonderful programme for the evening.
Stay posted further down on this page for more information on speakers and the programme.
♿️ Accessibility note
The event location is accessible and has an elevator and an accessible toilet. During the event we can provide live closed captioning for those who need it. Please reach out to us via info@thehmm.nl if you are joining on-site and have either of these access needs so we can accommodate you. If you are joining online via our livestream, live captioning will be available as one of the streaming modes.
Have you ever thought about primates managing their own audio-visual devices or pets video-calling humans and other animals? Dr. Ilyena Hirskyj-Douglas, an Assistant Professor and Director of the Animal-Computer Interaction Lab at the University of Glasgow, is thinking about just that. Tonight, Ilyena will explore the idea of a dog internet, a space for dog-to-dog connection mediated by technology, independent of human presence. Drawing from her design fiction research, including speculative systems like DogFlix and Virtual Walk, she asks: What does connection mean for non-human users? How do we design technologies that support relationships, play, and agency between animals themselves? Through these speculative futures, she makes a case for expanding the internet to accommodate non-human lives and needs, not just as tools for human benefit, but as platforms for interspecies connection. After all, what is life without dogs sniffing other dogs online? Link
Mark van Heukelum
In April of 2025, John Oliver featured the ‘visdeurbel’ (or ‘fish doorbell’) on his show Last Week Tonight, causing the website to go viral for the second time since March of 2024, with more than a million people watching the livestream between March and April alone. The visdeurbel website shares live footage from Utrecht’s Weerdsluis, where fish gather to pass through the locks and continue their passage. Visitors to the website can help this along by pressing the ‘doorbell’ when they see a fish and the image gets sent to a worker who can open the locks and let them through. The project is the brainchild of Mark van Heukelum, an ecologist and concept developer, who will be joining us tonight to talk about the visdeurbel, its popularity, and the ways in which he’s been using the internet to involve people in nature conservation. Link and Link
Soyun Park
Does anthropomorphism in AI images reveal human-centrism? And can the process of feeding and generating AI media become an experimental exercise in accessing other-than-human modes of being in our bodies? These are some of the questions that Soyun, a South Korean interdisciplinary artist, researcher, and educator based in The Hague, will touch on in her talk. She’ll be presenting her workshop Shapeshifting with AI, where she combined field research, coding, and movement exercises, in order to create embodied source material for generative AI. How might we use AI to collectively shift from anthropomorphism toward non-anthropocentric embodiment? Link
