With technology dominating nearly every aspect of our daily lives, the digital landscape can sometimes feel increasingly sterile, operating autonomously from the lived human experience. The push for efficiency, automation, and data-driven solutions can, and in more cases than not, have led to a loss of the human hand and organic interactions. In response (and in some cases resistance), rewilding digital spaces—puts ephemerality and impermanence at the forefront of reclaiming the human element within technology-driven worlds.
Traditionally referred to as restoring natural ecosystems by allowing organic processes to reestablish themselves, the rewilding of digital or digitized spaces can present opportunities for designing spaces that prioritize human connection and emotional engagement over rigid structures and algorithmic control. Potentially, it could facilitate a reintegration of unpredictability, spontaneity, and humanity into digitized processes and experiences.
Consequences of Over-Sanitization
As algorithms shape our interactions, personalized feeds reinforce biases, filter bubbles limit exposure to diverse perspectives, and digital spaces become more transactional than relational. The loss of human-centered design can result in overly-curated content, notable declines in authentic engagement as interactions become scripted, and, lastly, a sense of isolation despite constant connectivity.
Strategies for Rewilding Digital Spaces
Unlike the current trend of archiving and protecting permanent digital footprints, rewilding can embrace temporary, fleeting interactions that mimic real-life conversations and experiences. Platforms that allow for disappearing messages, temporary content, or evolving digital landscapes help create a more organic and less rigid digital environment. This approach could reduce the pressure of perfection, encourage more spontaneous engagement, and help prevent the overwhelming accumulation of digital clutter.
While embracing imperfection and fostering environments that encourage discovery, dialogue, and deep human connection, this certainly involves moving away from monolithic tech giants toward decentralized, user-controlled platforms, allowing individuals more agency over their digital interactions. Introducing elements of randomness in algorithms can prevent over-curation and stimulate creativity, countering the echo chamber effect. Prioritizing human-centered design ensures that digital experiences better mimic organic, face-to-face interactions, fostering genuine connection. Additionally, encouraging slower, more meaningful engagement over fast, fleeting interactions helps cultivate deeper and more thoughtful exchanges in the digital sphere.
Image Credit: The Wilds, Self-Absorbed, Tim Murray-Browne
Decentralized social media networks like the Fediverse and Mastodon empower users to create and control their own communities without corporate oversight. Platforms such as Are.na encourage serendipity-driven browsing, fostering creative discovery over algorithmic recommendations. The slow media movement, exemplified by initiatives like (the now discontinued) The Correspondent, promotes in-depth journalism over clickbait, ensuring more meaningful digital engagement. Virtual gathering spaces like Gather.Town recreate spatial, social interactions, making online meetups more organic and engaging. Additionally, digital gardens—personal websites and wikis championed by figures like Maggie Appleton and Andy Matuschak—offer evolving, interconnected ideas rather than static, time-stamped content, promoting continuous exploration and learning.
Image Credit: Liberty Bell, Nancy Baker Cahill
The ways in which creative practioners are also exploring how rewilding can reshape human interaction with digital spaces, moving from the transactional to the relational could be found in the works of Tim Murray-Browne, Nancy Baker Cahill, Lauren Lee McCarthy, and Tega Brain. Murray-Browne’s work The Wildes challenges conventional forms of human-machine interactions, driven by an emergent system that encourages human agency and self-expression. Rather than reinforcing rigid UX structures, his work reintroduces fluidity into digital interactions, allowing for greater spontaneity and discovery. Similarly, Cahill’s Liberty Bell, an AR public art intervention, reclaims digital space as a site for collective engagement and civic dialogue, shifting digital interactions away from extractive models towards ones that foster presence and participation. Other projects such as Lauren Lee McCarthy’s SOMEONE and Tega Brain’s Unfit Bits subvert algorithmic predictability by inserting uncertainty and poetic disruption into data-driven environments, advocating for digital systems that prioritize human complexity over efficiency.
Image Credit: SOMEONE, Lauren Lee McCarthy
Future(s) of Digital Rewilding
The future of digital spaces should not be dictated solely by algorithms and monolithic tech giants but shaped by human agency, creativity, and organic interaction. Rewilding the digital world is about more than just changing the way platforms operate—it’s about redefining how we engage with technology through a decentralized model and embraces ephemerality and impermanence over profit.
In the end the choice is ours: to continue down a path of efficiency-driven sterility or to embrace a rewilded, human-first digital future. The latter offers an opportunity to reclaim the digital realm as a space for authenticity, connection, and collective growth.
