Before the Blackout examines how protest discourse becomes vulnerable when state power is exercised through privately owned digital infrastructure. Focusing on two of the largest democracies, the United States and India, the project traces how digital surveillance and platform governance can threaten the online records of political expression protest movements produce in real time. The investigation preserves these records across three forms: a web-based archive of protest discourse, a satirical video essay examining the ethics of surveillance and archival practice, and a print edition designed to outlast the digital systems the project critiques. Across each case, the archive follows movements through their full cycle of contention, preserving posts, memes, music, and other media while situating them within their broader political context.

 

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