Depicting Data Centers
       
     
Farm
       
     
Mayes County Mural, Google Data Center Mural Project
       
     
Internet Machine
       
     
STANDARD
       
     
Depicting Data Centers
       
     
Depicting Data Centers

The rapid global growth of data centers — enormous digital processing facilities that constitute the material infrastructure behind “cloud computing” and artificial intelligence — during the early twenty-first century, has produced a variety of ecological and environmental justice problems resulting from their voracious consumption of energy, water, and land, as well as their generation of substantial noise, air pollution, and concerns about economic inequity in adjacent local communities. With more than 500 data centers built and projected, the Commonwealth of Virginia has been called “Data Center Alley” — a nickname recalling the notorious “Cancer Alley” of petrochemical facilities in Louisiana. This gallery highlights works of art that challenge the ethereal promotional discourse of “cloud computing” by highlighting the substantial ecological and material realities of data centers while probing their broader aesthetic and social implications.

Farm
       
     
Farm

John Gerrard, Irish

2015

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Mayes County Mural, Google Data Center Mural Project
       
     
Mayes County Mural, Google Data Center Mural Project

Jenny Odell, American

2016

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Internet Machine
       
     
Internet Machine

Timo Arnall, British

2015

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STANDARD
       
     
STANDARD

John Gerrard, Irish

2023

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