Goodbye World! seeks to examine the changing nature of culture in the Age of the Internet—the network of all networks, which has collectively bound human society, beginning in the late 1960s when ARPANET was first developed—by focusing on how the way that we “see” the world has changed. This monograph begins with the period after the emergence of the World Wide Web in 1989, but is largely focused around the post-2000s, and considers how the Internet has changed the way that we relate to ourselves, to others, and to the urban and metropolitan landscapes that surround us. It seeks to put into language terms and ideas that have developed since the millennium, fostering a language that can be been used by artists, architects, and creative practitioners. As such, this book traces the birth of a culture propagated by the Internet but also a culture consumed by it. It will begin with an introduction that outlines the key questions of examination: Has the internet changed the way that we see and relate to images, through screens? If so, how do these images create new ways of feeling that are specifically determined by these technologies? How has the internet changed the way that we document urban space through the circulation of images of revolution and uprising? A key chapter in the book will be focused on how the urban landscape of the Arab Uprisings, Egypt in particular, was documented and circulated online. This leads us to our overarching question: Where to from here?

Omar Kholeif is a writer, curator, and editor, whose work focuses on the intersection of politics, urbanism, and emergent technologies in an increasingly globalized, accelerating world. He currently holds the post of Manilow Senior Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Previously, he was curator at the Whitechapel Gallery, London; senior curator at Cornerhouse; senior editor at Ibraaz Publishing; artistic director at the Arab British Center, London; founding director of the UK's Arab Film Festival; head of art and technology at Space, London; and curator at FACT, Liverpool. He was a cofounding editor of Portal 9, a journal of urbanism and architecture in the Middle East. He has authored and/or edited more than a dozen books, including You Are Here: Art After the Internet (Cornerhouse and Space, 2014), Moving Image (MIT Press and Whitechapel Gallery, 2015), and The Rumors of the World: Re-thinking Trust in the Age of the Internet (Sternberg Press, 2015). He writes for the likes of the Guardian, Artforum, Art Monthly, and Frieze, among many other publications. He has curated or co-curated numerous exhibitions, projects, and programs, including the Abraaj Group Art Prize; the Liverpool Biennial; the Cyprus Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale; and Focus: Middle East, North Africa and the Mediterranean for the Armory Show, New York.