James Maguire, Gustav Johannes Hoder, Jacob Remin, Natalie P. Koerner, Keller Easterling
Hyperscale
HYPERSCALE: CLOUD MATERIALITIES is a collection of two years of artistic research on the geopolitics of three data centers by Google, Facebook and Apple under construction in Denmark, along with a number of academic and philosophical essays. It was published in connection with the exhibition Hyperscale at Spanien19c, Aarhus, December 2nd, 2021.
In computing, hyperscale refers to architectures and systems that can be scaled as demand increases or decreases. This is often applied to big data or cloud computing applications, but the terms are carried into the physical realm, as hyperscale data centers are constructed following the same principles of scalability.
Through video, installation and sound, the exhibition Hyperscale presented a critical vision of the physical reality, which is the digital cloud. Focusing on the three hyperscale data centers which are currently under construction in Denmark, along with several others in planning, the exhibition examined the material aspects of the data abstraction, as it is currently under construction.
The publication collects a number of different contributions: an interview with Keller Easterling, “Digital clouds, fallout clouds” by Natalie P. Koerner, “Here, but mostly elsewhere” by James Maguire, “Systems of scale” by Jacob Remin & “Hypernoia” by Gustav Johannes Hoder.
Read more about the artistic research project here.
