PDF Abstract A recurring feature in images and imaginations of the data center is the complete absence of human beings. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the data center industry,…
PDF Abstract Microsoft’s transition to being both a cloud company and a carbon neutral company occurred at the same time and with common structuring logics. Cloud computing, carbon offsetting, and…
PDF https://vimeo.com/182594845 Abstract This article considers media infrastructures as an interweaving between geology, space, data and affect through a series of artworks produced by the author using a research methodology…
PDF Abstract This essay meditates on the role of the ephemeral as a source of media power for large and immobile hyperscale data centers. Taking field study notes and online…
PDF Abstract Access to inexpensive hydro-resources, such as hydro-electricity and water for cooling, cheap land, and proximity to undersea networks have created a spatial sweet spot for large data firms…
PDF Abstract In recent years, Iceland has emerged as a hotspot for international data center development. The island’s cool climate and abundance of renewable energy create what industry representatives have…
PDF ‘Engines of the cloud,’ ‘brain of the beast,’ ‘archives of digital capitalism,’ ‘factories of the 21st century’ – these, and similar metaphors, are frequently used to describe industrial scale…
PDF Abstract Bunkers are imposing physical objects that harbour surprising insights into how humans attempt to control time. This brief article investigates how concepts of time are structured through the…
PDF Abstract This article tracks the history of the sweatbox as a racialized technology of thermal violence. Through an analysis of the sweatbox’s use on the plantations and prisons of…
PDF In 1927, Marcel Mauss gave his definite answer to Henri Bergson’s concept of ‘homo faber’: Homo faber, says M. Bergson. This formula signifies only the obvious or too much…