A Theoretical Framework

Diya Ibrahim

Big Tech’s portrayal of the cloud as an airy unreal digital space is its most successful marketing trick. Despite the perception of an infinite cloud of data existing in a spaceless limbo, data is stored in very physical and real infrastructure. In massive power-consuming Data centers located in remote places. These data centers that house the servers of the cloud are intentionally mystified, purposefully undesigned, and obscured from the public eye. Inside the building are countless stacks of servers, humming away and consuming large amounts of fossil-fuelled electricity and water in order to enable massive streams of data to circulate. The narrative of the cloud and the internet in general as existing in a magical parallel digital space is a clever and nefarious marketing trick. Because the internet is really just a network of tubes supported by ugly power-consuming boxes. The internet is an exquisitely material thing. It’s not clouds. The de-spatialization of the internet is disingenuous and just dangerous.

My thesis aims to explore the negative consequences of this despatialization and to reimagine a data infrastructure that is sustainable, transparent, and community-oriented and that humanizes data and reinforces democratic values.

What would the reverse of this digital panopticon look like? How can we create a data infrastructure that is sustainable, transparent, and community-oriented and that humanizes data and reinforces democratic values?

For more information about this project, please visit https://cdn.me-qr.com/pdf/14326450.pdf