Event Details

The language we use most often to describe digital data is resolutely placeless: "flow," "streaming", the incarnate "cloud." And yet, our data does not condense from nothing and nowhere, nor does it hover benignly in the sky. Fiber-optic cables traverse seabeds to connect continents; internet exchange points physically append multiple networks; and data centers house the servers that store the data on which our online lives depend. This talk takes those data centers as a point of departure for charting a geography of the so-called cloud. Investigating a recent boom of data center construction in Iceland, it asks how new digital infrastructures alter existing landscapes, and provoke questions and contestations over what kind of place Iceland is and wants to be. Linking contemporary developments to histories of colonization, military occupation, and extractive industry, this talk will argue that digital infrastructures do not only have "local impacts"; they are emerging as key agents in making and claiming place today. 

Media and Cultural Studies is happy to welcome Assistant Professor Alix Johnson from International Studies to our series of lunchtime talks. Professor Johnson will introduce some of her research on the geography of placeless digital data. Pizza will be provided!