Standards Make the World

David Lang explores how standards function as protocols — examining the role of measurement, specification, and shared convention in making the material world legible, buildable, and interoperable.

Related resources

Paper

Standards Make the World (Anthology)

David Lang's anthology explores how standards shape the physical and digital world, using concrete examples of open-source hardware development to demonstrate that standards-setting, contrary to popular belief, is a dynamic and innovative process rather than a purely technical or bureaucratic endeavor. The work documents how iterative design, community collaboration, and openness can improve standards even when progress is slower than purely software-based development.

protocols research standards

Dec 2023

David Lang

Paper

2023 Retrospectus

The 2023 Retrospectus is a collection of essays from the Summer of Protocols initiative examining how protocols function across social, economic, and technological domains, featuring contributions on topics ranging from killswitch mechanisms and protocolized economics to memory-making and emergency response systems. The volume presents a multidisciplinary exploration of protocols as generative frameworks for organizing collective behavior, coordination, and cultural production in both digital and physical contexts.

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Dec 2023

Summer of Protocols

Framework

Bristlemouth: An Open Protocol for Marine Hardware

Bristlemouth is an open-source underwater connector standard featuring waterproof, wet-mateable contacts sealed to 300 meters depth, enabling modular plug-and-play hardware interfaces for marine robotics applications. The protocol allows autonomous underwater vehicles and other marine instruments to be rapidly reconfigured by swapping standardized hardware modules based on mission requirements.

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Dec 2023

David Lang