Dear all,
This email to share that the fifth session of the seminar on Digital
Materialities will be held on Tuesday, April 8, 2025 (4-6 p.m. CEST) via Zoom
remotely or in person in Paris, details by email after registration here :
https://evento.renater.fr/survey/seminaire-materialites-du-numerique-uxql11mf
We will have the pleasure of welcoming Steven Gonzalez
Monserrate, doctor of anthropology from MIT
and postdoctoral fellow at Goethe University, for a talk in English entitled:
The Clouds (In)Security: The Perils of Terraforming Environment for
Computation
Abstract: Data centers are highly secure facilities. As the computational
engines of digital capitalism, significant resources are devoted to
protecting these infrastructures and ensuring the unceasing continuity of
their operations. Security, conceived in this way, might refer to the military
logics, geopolitical dynamics, and imperial histories that insulate or
heighten the vulnerability of data centers. However, while the threats of
cyberwarfare significantly influence the siting and operation of data centers,
security considerations extend to Nature as both a threat and opportunity, a
resource and an obstacle for ubiquitous computation and artificial
intelligence. Drawing on multi-sited ethnographic research, this intervention
offers a comparative survey of data centers operating in different
environments. Case studies include a data center in the arid southwestern
United States, another in the arctic chill of Iceland, and a final case in the
humid tropics of Singapore. With a focus on the materiality of computation and
the pragmatic challenges that different climates pose for servers, I frame the
Clouds expansion as an act of terraforming. By attending to both the
environmental impacts of computation and the required inputs for the
metabolism of data, the intervention concludes by asking how the Clouds
terraforming threatens as much as it assures continuity.
You can register for the session and find the full program of the seminar on
the working group's webpage.
The next session will take place on Wednesday, May 21 (4-6 p.m.), in hybrid
format, with the arrival of Gauthier Roussilhe (RMIT) for a presentation
entitled: Purer than pure: a new method to explore the upstream materiality
of digitalization.
You can contact the seminar organizers at this address: gdt.matnum@gmail.com
We look forward to seeing many of you there.
Best,
Adrien Tournier
This seminar is being organized by : Hugo Estecahandy (GEODE, IFG), Valentin
Goujon (mdialab, Sciences Po), Adrien Tournier (HT2S, Cnam).
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