City in the Cloud: Data on the Ground The Architecture of Data

The increasing datafication of our virtual and physical lives is leading to an exponential rise in the construction of data infrastructure like undersea cable networks, data centers, and server farms. New data centers sprawl over vast territories, and cities and states around the globe are dedicating entire areas to these constructions so they can compete on the global data map. These areas produce great value, but they come at a great cost, and are often contested by local communities and environmental movements. The power-hungry, resource-intensive sites depend on clean water and local energy grids, creating an unequal concentration of power in favor of just a few multinational corporations. Moreover, details about data production and data rights have been obscured from public debates. At the same time, data and its infrastructure have virtually become the new currency. This demands the extraction of more and more critical materials like lithium, copper, cobalt, and tin.

This exhibition critically examines the impact of data infrastructure by exploring its materiality and revealing the sites and spaces where data is produced and consumed. How do we cope with the increased appetite for data and data infrastructure, and how do we balance it with just and equitable development? What effect does pervasive datafication have on the material landscape, on architectural practice, and on memory and heritage?

By revealing the sites of data construction and raising awareness about our planetary data footprint, we also question how to care for data – what to keep and what to let go of. Aimed at making data infrastructure visible, the exhibition opens a discussion about this infrastructure’s potential role in fostering democratic and eco-technological collective futures.

The exhibition is organized around a series of questions which unfold in the exhibition space and are developed further in the exhibition catalog. These questions scrutinize data infrastructure by looking at its materiality, at data production, consumption, and destruction, and at the ways in which data has shaped architectural practice and our relationship to memory, history, and heritage. The exhibition is accompanied by Data Talks, a podcast recorded and live-streamed in the exhibition space, bringing the discussion to an even wider audience.