Grounding the cloud
the human condition in the digital landscape
Academic - Master’s Thesis | Prof. John Shnier
Winter 2018
The interfaces we have grown so familiar with allow us to mediate between various realities, occupying both digital and physical spaces of appearance. While digital space now provides the capacity to be seen and heard everywhere and always, creating new publics, it does so by removing us from the reality of our physical bodies, simultaneously disconnecting us from the large and heavy physical presence of the Internet. This thesis aims to reprogram data centres and our understanding of this architecture, into a public space for people to see, hear, feel and sense the presence of the Internet.
Readings from The Human Condition by Hannah Arendt explored the definition of the space of appearance, which constitutes reality by being seen and heard by others within the public. With the digital landscape now facilitating the space of appearance through the use of social media, it is perhaps worth updating the criteria for the space of appearance through a post-digital lens, adding physical sensations to the equation.
In order to preserve the importance of the physical space of appearance, this thesis collapses data and human space into one, producing possible architectural scenarios for data infrastructure and public program, and thus opportunities for more public human participation within data centres.
A short film composition produced during the research component of this thesis, explored the use of metaphors such as cloud, cyberspace, and surfing the web, alongside the large physical presence of data centres. The film begins with a split screen composition rapidly depicting Internet activity and data centre interiors, juxtaposing digital and physical spaces of the Internet, before superimposing footage of data centers onto footage of outer space, once again evoking conditions of scale, tangibility, and reality. Marble monoliths stood in as abstracted server cabinets within the larger installation, with the short video composition shown at the end of the aisle.
Renders of speculative data centre conditions were presented within the larger installation of the thesis, viewed through a small opening intended to make one feel as though within the space of the render. Going back to the writing of Arendt, this focussed gaze put viewers into the reality of the render.
Thesis Stones: texts pivotal to the research were etched in stone the same proportions as a data server rack.
Where the Internet Lives
Undersea fibre optic cable network, and major data centres across the globe.
The Internet lives in data centres. Sometimes called warehouse scale computers, the main occupants of these incredibly large data centres are countless rows of servers processing everything from Internet searches, to high stakes financial trading. Two models of data centres are most often used, the dedicated data centre operated and financed by an individual enterprise, and the colocation centre where multiple entities rent and server space under one roof. One of the major common siting strategies for data centres big and small, is proximity to the fibre optic cable network. Tracing former colonial ship routes, these cables rest on the ocean floor, transferring information at high speeds between continents. Accessibility to this network is vital to providing a competitive service.
Dedicated data centres, the warehouse scale computers referred to earlier, are often located outside of urban centres due to spatial and energy requirements. A small case study on the Google data centre in The Dalles, Oregon, revealed many standard characteristics such as scale, proximity to fibre optic cable, accessibility to water for cooling, and potential for land tax exemptions. Many of these larger dedicated data centres are given tax exemptions by the less populated cities they inhabit, in return for increased industrial activity and employment.
Colocation centres on the other hand often inhabit urban realms, appealing to a large population of corporate customers. Taking up nearly entire city blocks, such as the Equinix Data Centre in Toronto, these spaces employ few human employees (around 20), in comparison to the thousands of servers. Windows are few along the facade, protecting server spaces from warm sunlight, communicating instead a diagrammatic facade application to the urban public.
