DATA CENTERED
Data Centered is a transnational art and research collective. Between 2021 and 2023 a team of artists and researchers have collaborated on projects focused on the contemporary development of data centers in Africa. Approaching the data center as a dimension of media infrastructure, the project investigates the materialities of data centers in Cairo, Lagos, Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, and Capetown/Johannesburg, including issues of ecology, ownership, culture, and socio-economic relations. The team conceptualizes “data centering” as the process by which lands, resources, labor, and publics are reorganized to support the global data economy. The project will result in a series of individual and collaborative artworks, including an exhibition at the Lagos Biennial in 2024.
Image: "Digital Labor,” glitch art by Laila Shereen Sakr, 2021.
Team (L to R): Laila Shereen Sakr also known as VJ Um Amel (US/Egypt), Miha Vipotnik (Slovenia/Lebanon), Temitayo Ogunbiyi (Nigeria), and Lisa Parks (US)
Project Goals
to use humanities & arts-based research to support public knowledge and education about the development of data centers in Africa
to investigate the biospheres surrounding data centers and the infrastructures, labor, and resource economies that support them
to deepen understanding of the energy demands and carbon footprints of data centers
to experiment with ways of representing and mediating data centers in art and sound practices
to critique the neocolonial, neoliberal, extractive, and exploitative dimensions of data center developments
to build a workshop template to support public knowledge around data centers that can be used by communities
Events
“Art and Infrastructure: Using Creative Research to support Public Knowledge of Data Centers in Africa and Beyond,” Bread and Net Festival, Beirut, November 24-26, 2021
L. Parks, “‘Cloud Boom’: Ownership and Backends of Data Centers in Sub-Saharan Africa,” International Communication Association Conference, Paris, May 2022
Data Centered Collective workshop and multimedia installation, Lagos Bienniale, February 2024
Work in Progress Gallery
Sound experiments
Created by VJ Um Amel
