During
the summer of 2021, I took a road trip for the duration of four weeks
to visit twelve data center locations, camping at or near each for a
number of nights. I drove to Oregon, Nevada through the deserts of
California, Utah and Arizona. Curious to experience and chronicle the
emerging condition that the data center embodies, I traveled to these
zones and inhabited the machine landscapes that invisibly run the modern
world. I was interested in exploring these massive and energy-consuming
buildings and the surrounding landscape as more than just computational
infrastructure, but monuments to human knowledge in an increasingly
disconnected society.
For most of us, “The Cloud” is an
intangible, mystical, infinite place. Most of us don't see the
underbelly or experience the internet as objects. These different
objects are described in a bunch of mixed abstract metaphors that
reference the landscape and yet deny any relation the physical
relationship between the earth and the internet. The gap between the
physical reality of the Cloud, and what we can see of it, between the
idea of the cloud and the name that we give it was both disturbing and
intriguing. At the data centers, I’ve found cement, metal gates, water
tanks, stone, grasshoppers, sagebrush and sunburns. Inside smashed
electronics I’ve found a complex assemblage of conductive materials,
silicon, rare-earth minerals and sharpied handwriting from the
factory. I read about the rows and rows of blinking servers that hold
the contents of our overflowing devices. I learned about the millions of
gallons of mostly potable water required to cool the machines each day.
A dry scratching like sandpaper on my skin each time I remembered the
rainless winters, and the long, smoky summers.
It was at the
very edge of the continent that the internet emerged, the edge of
westward expansion. The insatiable hunger for space extended into
cyberspace. But that cyberspace requires physical space all around the
world. This pattern of land use, on such a massive scale, adheres to the
American West's signature mythology; endless horizons, unlimited
opportunity and boundless freedom.
I collected data at these
sites and along fiber optic pathways in the form of soil, clay, native,
non-native plants and rocks. The information inside the giant secured
warehouses seemed oblivious to the knowledge of the earth and stone they
were built upon.
I felt the buzz of the electricity of the high
tension wires above the fields where I gleaned the plants, thanking each
and taking only a handful from a few, the way I was taught. I engaged
with the cardinal directions, the sun, the stars and cell towers
building sundials and marking shadows with stones to orient myself
within the landscape, present time and the cosmos at large. I listened
to the sound of the train as it moved and changed across the hills.
Knocking metal on metal, there was a deeper sound, one I recognized in
my bones to be the knocking of ancient ways of knowing out of the land.
You can read more about the project from an artist feature with on.off-siteSites visited:
1. National Security Agency Data Center
40.4257796598849, -111.93419625915199
2. Facebook Data Center
44.29512284907158, -120.88501868367571
3. Apple Data Center
44.28855126056528, -120.87613851490943
4. Apple Data Center
39.56667605261107, -119.54850721164398
5. Google Data Center
36.056316005111185, -115.00905600154655
6. Switch Data Center
39.512824, -119.472852
7. Google Data Center
39.500887, -119.429850
8. Digital Realty Data Center
33.276752, -111.889563
9. Edgecore Data Center
33.70950919626336, -111.43315270068169
10. Facebook Data Center
33.35120432169686, -111.66429198242842
11. Apple Data Center
33.347625816491856, -111.60433051904087
12. Tonaquint Data Center
37.08157099060394, -113.6071193573538