Category: Group B

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Image. Security. Organization. These are the three things that the data centers seem to emphasize. These focuses seem to distract from unveiling the mystery of data within the cloud. The metaphor that “infrastructures are like lenticular prints: they always come with a switch effect… they animate our view, make us shift our categories of what they are” stood out to me (80). Lenticular printing gives the allusion of depth or the ability of an image to change as it is viewed from different angles. This makes companies like Google and Bahnhof seem like the mouse while the consumer is the cat – these data centers reveal enough to make you think they are being transparent with you, but leaves you without all of the information so there is still the desire and awe.

This video about the Google data centers demonstrates this seemingly hypervisible-while-still-obscure phenomena. It is full of technical terms with clean editing and futuristic/safe music. It also confirms that these data centers incorporate an environmentally friendly tactic into their image. While the video doesn’t exactly show deer in the foreground as in Figure 3.5 on page 77, it does emphasize Google’s energy efficiency.

These data centers are very much planned marketing strategies with an agenda, like a public profile. The concerns raised in the second half of the article are not publicly broadcasted, which emphasizes the bureaucratic side of these data centers. They even seem to have marketing schemes, such as the metaphors relating to the cloud, which again seem to be helping the consumer to understand what is going on in “the cloud,” but still don’t reveal intimate facts on the cloud.

Bibliography

“Security and Data Protection in a Google Data Center.flv“. Video uploaded by chandansaha101. YouTube. 24 April, 2011.

Featured Image: A central cooling plant in Google’s Douglas County, Georgia data center. Photo: Google/Connie Zhou.

Posted from Intro to Digital Studies by Lauren C.

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In the chapter “Where the Internet Lives” from the book Signal Traffic, Jennifer Holt and Patrick Vonderau zero in on the availability and importance of transparency for cloud service providers. Referencing data center photos published by Google, Apple, and Bahnhof AB, Holt and Vonderau state that while these photos may look like a step towards transparency, they continue to conceal “mechanical, electrical, or technical infrastructure design, energy use or network infrastructure” (Holt and Vonderau 74, read full chapter here).

Image of one of Google’s data centers that Holt and Vonderau reference. Source.

This apparent transparency displayed by a few of the tech giants made me start to think about the huge power and responsibility these firms have. While I’m sure it’s a common sentiment, I know that I generally do not consider how the information that I provide to Google or Apple is being used. As a 2014 truthout.org article reports, however, “only the NSA rivals Google in terms of information gathering” (Read full Truth Out article here). Additionally, the article states that a recent study shows that Americans are significantly more worried about companies like Google and Apple than the NSA in terms of how they use information provided to them.

Google’s information gathering capabilities can feel restrictive and dangerous. Source.

Along with collecting significant amounts of data from its users, Google is also known for its political activism in recent years. No company has spent more on lobbying since 2012, and Google funds “about 140 trade associations and other nonprofits across the ideological spectrum” (Truth-Out, article found here). Clearly, Google has significant influence both in the marketplace and in the political sphere. The combination of massive amounts of information and money combined with political power makes a company like Google scary. Without responsible leadership and regulations, firms like Google can be very dangerous, and as Holt and Vonderau point out, simply seeing images of their data centers does not mean that we have any idea how the data we provide is being used.

 

Posted from Digital Studies 101 Blog by Patrick G.

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We’ve all heard about the “cloud” and how we are able to store stuff somewhere up there, but not too many people truly understand how it actually works. The cloud is an enigma, meant to be seen as a type of technology that is “above” us. We trust it to save our digital footprints and really our identities, without even knowing how it operates or works.

In this weekend’s readings Signal Traffic: Critical Studies of Media Infrastructures, written by Lisa Parks and Nicole Starosielski, we read about the cloud and how it is actually based on the ground, and its truly not what you may think. The cloud is composed of hundreds of thousands of super computers that can store a ton of data. These super computers and gathered together in a physical infrastructure and kept maintained by a select few. I find it very interesting how we as users see the cloud to be a mysterious being that can save everything we throw in it, however, in reality, it is man-made, maintained by man, and hidden away by man.

In the readings Parks and Starosielski described these physical infrastructures as,” …the physical presence of this imaginary space, and yet they strive to remain invisible in many ways.” But why do they keep the cloud hidden? The reading then goes on to say, “…concealment strategies keep citizens naive and uninformed about the network technologies they subsidize and use each day.”

We see that the cloud is meant to be hidden to keep the users distant, and unaware of what companies are using them for. These companies could be using our data from good or for bad, we don’t know, all we can say for certain is that the “cloud” is more than meets the eye.

Bibliography:

The meme:

https://ifunny.co/fun/FWMJM7iV2?gallery=tag&query=cloud

Signal Traffic: Critical Studies of Media Infrastructure, edited by Lisa Parks and
Nicole Starosielski, published in 2015.

Posted from My blog by Nile

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Tracery Project

 

Posted from Stir Fry Education by Nicky E.

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If the Internet were a highway, data would be its vehicles. The data centers, which house much of the Internet’s production, are the sprawling metropolises. In real terms, the centers are housed throughout the world, storing large parts of the data which span Mount Everest in discs several times over, if you can actually picture that. From Google’s colorful factory that looks like a children’s playground to Bahnhof’s wartime bunker, these buildings take care of valuable pieces of information to keep our lives rolling in this digital age. Unfortunately, a problem has arisen recently concerning energy use of these mega storage units. According to the Holt and Vonderau reading,” a single data center can require more power than a medium sized town”. By 2020,  it is predicted that they will use more carbon emissions than air travel. Do we have the energy to supply these key structures for not just now, but for the deep future? Climate change is an issue whether or not the President is overlooking it. What do you think, Hank Green?

 

As Davidson students, the “data center corridor” is right in our backyard in North Carolina with Google, Apple, and Facebook hubs. Only using four percent electricity from renewable sources could be absolutely awful for us in decades to come if the trend continues. As NC residents, it may be time to think about the harmful effects of the nearly astronomical lines of data using electricity that harms our environment. Fortunately, steps have been taken to maybe move us closer to the right track. Apple has installed a massive amount of solar panels at an NC location, and Google has been taking steps as well to promote environmentally-friendly data centers in areas around the world. If we can have these amazing data storage technologies along with green energy resources, we will truly have the best of both worlds.

Sources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuZDylVFbhs

Jennifer, and Patrick Vonderau. “Where the Internet Lives.” Signal Traffic, University of Illinois, 2015, pp. 71–93, courses.digitaldavidson.net/dig101-2017/documents/holt-whero-the-internet-lives-2015.pdf.

Posted from My blog by Wes K.

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It seems that since the beginning of modern technology people have believed the purpose of these technological innovations were to connect us with other people. Therefore, it should be no surprise that technology had been used like we use it now as a method of romance or dating. The second chapter in the novel, When Old Technologies Were New: Thinking about Electric Communication in the Late Nineteenth Century (1988) writes of how, “New forms of technology created unprecedented opportunities not only for courting, but for infidelity” (70). We have always had this understanding that the technological innovations we have developed put us in a private sphere, privy to only us, when in fact it does the opposite. So it should be no surprise that people use technology as a medium to accomplish private and intimate things like dating and infidelity because individuals feel as if they are anonymous and protected behind the technological mediums they use. Even today we use Google’s search engine to ask things we may not necessarily feel comfortable asking another person. On a more extreme level, people even make fake social media profiles to talk to other people they feel they have no chance with in “real life”.

On the other side of the spectrum, we have now developed apps and websites intended to make dating more transparent. By having users create profiles and listing their hobbies, likes and dislikes, dating is supposed to have become more easy. But we have to ask ourselves the question of whether or not technology actually brings us closer to other people because it in fact eliminates a whole human element of face to face contact some would beg is necessary to create and maintain relationships.

Posted from Course Blogs by Shayla B.

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In class on Wednesday, Dr. Sample mentioned how in The Lumière Brothers’ film Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (1895), the audience was afraid and ran out of the theater because they thought the train was coming towards them. This reminded me of Urban Projection Mapping – or projecting film onto buildings – which has a similar effect on the modern audience as the train did in 1895. Projection Mapping presents this same concept of something very recognizable and realistic presented through technology, but is affected by the technology in a way that is scary for the viewer. This article on The Coolist provides ten excellent examples of this, but the video below is specifically unnerving.

This is the Beurs van Berlage building in Amsterdam and is an advertisement for Samsung, who hired NuFormer to create the video, which shows the building being destroyed and overtaken by wildlife. The unsettling part is how it starts with the normal look of the building, and then you hear the crack of the foundation and it breaks down right in front of you, as if experiencing an earthquake.

Another video from that website has a similar disturbing effect, but the building is not destroyed – rather it is built.

This projection took place on the Aeroport nightclub at the 44th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. In this piece, you get three different architectural versions of the building. The one that looks most like a raw blueprint is most unnerving because it is as if the viewer can see through the building and can see the skeleton of it.

Since Carolyn Marvin’s chapter talked a lot about society’s fears of technology, I was going to ask if projects like these cause any modern fears? But I feel like this kind of art causes more fascination. Maybe that’s because we are desensitized by technology now? Today, do we still experience that “any hint of technical complexity raise[s] doubt and suspicion” (77)? Marvin wrote that “essential markers of social distance were in danger, and that critical class distinctions could become unenforceable unless new markers of privacy and publicity could be established” (70). This is a public form of art, which furthers the deconstruction of classes because rather than paying to go to a museum, anyone on the street can watch. So while ‘electrical devices’ like the telephone affected communication between classes, art and film has pushed to reach all classes of people, not just the demographic that would go to a museum.

Bibliography

Macula, artist. Aeroport Mapping. Published by INITI.org. Vimeo, 2009.

NuFormer, artist. NuFormer, 3D Video Mapping (One Take) – Samsung, Amsterdam, the Netherlands – May 2010. Vimeo, May 2010.

Payne, Seamus. “When Buildings Come Alive: 10 Unreal Urban Projection Mapping Videos.” TheCoolist. 12 Nov. 2010.

Featured Image  from Lighting Sibiu 2016 International videomapping competition, titled “Mapping Sibiu’s Main Square”

Posted from Intro to Digital Studies by Lauren C.