TERRITORIO ECTOPLASMA: SESSION #2 Data Storage

MARINA OTERO'S PRESENTATION

Data centers are a fundamental component of today’s digital infrastructure. This session focuses on their socio-political implications and environmental impacts, and their relevance for the future of data sovereignty.

MÉL HOGAN (online)
5-6 PM

Since 2012, Mél Hogan has advanced research on data storage. Her work explores alternatives to data centers and their excessive water and energy consumption. She also critically analyzes technological solutions that allegedly could solve the data deluge, such as DNA-based storage. Currently, Hogan is curious about how we’re using massive data centers to power humanoid robots, embodied AI, holograms, the ‘metaverse’, and chatbots.

Dr. Mél Hogan is Director of the Environmental Media Lab (EML) and Associate Professor of Communication, Media and Film, University of Calgary (Canada). Her research focuses on data centers, death in the cloud, and genomic media – each understood from within the contexts of planetary catastrophe and collective anxieties about the future.

SEBASTIAN LEHUEDE
6 - 7 PM

Sebastián Lehuede discusses the governance of digital technologies, which he approaches from a global social justice perspective inspired by Latin American decolonial theory. Lehuede is a member of Tierra Común, a network of scholars and activists opposing data colonialism, and has worked closely with communities protesting data centers worldwide.

Sebastián Lehuede is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Centre of Governance and Human Rights at the University of Cambridge. He currently investigates on digital rights from a decolonial perspective. As part of this project, Sebastián has worked with socioenvironmental groups resisting the expansion of digital infrastructure in Latin America. This year Sebastián obtained the Best Dissertation Award granted by the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR).

PERFORMATIVE LECTURE
IBIYE CAMP
7.30 - 8.30 PM

In her work, Ibiye Camp explores how data materializes in the West African landscape and analyzes the spatial consequences of its production, consumption and storage. As a cultural, economic, and strategic asset, data is, according to Camp, generally mobilized to the detriment of marginalized communities. Yet it could also be, she claims, a vehicle for restitution for citizens.

Ibiye Camp's work uses architectural tools to highlight the biases and conflicts inherent to technology and postcolonial subjects. Camp co-founded Xcessive Aesthetics, an interdisciplinary design collective exploring data through immersive technologies and public installations. Camp has presented her research at the, the 1st Sharjah Architecture Triennial 2019, the 5th Istanbul Biennial 2020, Triennale Milano 2020, 13th Shanghai Biennale 2021, MAAT Museum Lisbon 2021, ICA and Deptford X London 2022.

Consult the other sessions here or download the programme in pdf here.

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Free course fee