Data & visualisation > Energy and environment


The art of equitable and eco-friendly data


Resham Kotecha explains how the Open Data Institute responds to global challenges surrounding critical data infrastructures


I


t may seem unusual for an organisation such as the Open Data Institute (ODI)


to have its own art programme, or to analyse or respond to topics about data through the creative process. Yet at the ODI, our Data as


‘Most of this cloud infrastructure is privately owned, which means that the development of data ecosystems has often followed market forces’


Culture programme has now been a fixture for more than 10 years, commissioning original artworks and curating bold exhibitions – many of them in our offices. Pieces on show have included Ellie Harrison’s Vending Machine, which vends free crisps when the headlines mention recession; Eva and Franco Mattes’ Ceiling Cat and; Rohini Devasher’s One Hundred Thousand Suns, which draws on 120 years of data about the sun. If you want to expand the public’s understanding of data – as the ODI does – you sometimes have to be prepared to think and work differently in order to move the conversation along. Moreover, our art programme is integral to our research, with multidisciplinary enquiry part of our practice – where data scientists, social scientists and artists collaborate to explore research questions together. The latest example of this culminated in our recent report ‘Power, ecology and diplomacy in critical data infrastructures’. The art serves as the response to research on the material


10 Scientific Computing World Summer 2023


critical data infrastructure that allows the internet to function, along with all the services that rely upon it. The report also considers the power dynamics of this infrastructure and its value as a tool of diplomacy, as well as the environmental issues inherent within it. We delve into data centres, submarines and satellites – as parts of data infrastructure – as well as how privatisation, global inequality and regulation can, and will, affect data use. We also look at how data benefits businesses and communities around the world. With a growing reliance on data by new technologies, the ways in which we access, use and share data are becoming increasingly important on a global scale. The final report is punctuated by related artworks that look at the topics of networking, nature, infrastructure and power, illustrating the way that the ODI sees the relationship between data and art. Here, work in one arena often inspires that in the other.


Clouds on the bottom of the ocean Artists have long been fascinated by clouds, with Constable, Ruskin and Turner among those who have made their study a life’s work. But this group of artists would have more trouble sketching


or painting the digital clouds of today, which often fly way over our heads in satellite form, or traverse the ocean bed in the form of subsea cabling. These clouds are familiar to most people as the places we back up photographs from our phones or access music servers, but they are home to most of what we know as the internet, and are vulnerable to accident, sabotage or blatant attack.


Most of this cloud


infrastructure is privately owned, which means that the development of data ecosystems has often followed market forces rather than government policies or the needs of the public. This seemingly contradicts some early ideas that the internet and digital space would be increasingly free and open. Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft hold over half of the world’s hyperscale data centres, with these companies soon to possess more than 30 long-distance cable connections to every continent, consolidating information with power. At the same time, around


the world, communities are showing a positive desire to take an active part in the development and control of digital and data infrastructure. In the US, for example, more than 800 communities


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42