Processing Post on Database Aesthetics

Its no mystery that there is such a profound environmental impact on our planet  when it comes to having 24/7 access to our stuff. Glanz’s sobering article paints a bleak picture of the “dirty secret” that the information age is costing us and our environment. However, the article offers very little in providing examples of contemporary efforts to combat the unsustainable web. I appreciated how he mentions the model of “virtualization” which would “allow servers to merge their identities into large, flexible computing resources that can be doled out as needed to users, wherever they are.” This model allows systems to piggyback onto personal systems to process data by borrowing the computational power and diminish dependence on the data query being completely processed by the server. Its like a peer-to-peer processing, and in my opinion, it reeks of security risks. I typed “sustainable” + “server farms” in Google and found an article on justmeans.com that shares how companies like Apple, Google, Yahoo, and Facebook support sustainable server farms. The article shares how solar power can serve to provide a significant amount of power for some of Apple’s backend servers in Nevada. Most recently, Facebook constructed their first data center outside of the U.S. in Sweden. All of the needs for this data center are from renewable sources. The added dimension of cold weather is also an ideal environment for server farms that generate a lot of heat. This correlates well to the metahaven article on Iceland’s push for companies (and individuals) to store their data on the remote island. Low risk of war, natural disaster, and low population density. However, when we think about the materiality and the embodiment of the web it is really easy to forget that it is an extension of people. In the interview with Eleanor Saitta, and learning about the Open Internet Tools Project (OpenITP), I became very inspired. The services that OpenITP provides anti-surveillance and anti-censorship technology, aka circumvention technology
In meditating on ways to reflect to all users their impact, it would be interesting to receive a notice (via email of course) that calculates our total data quantum as a user. Something that serves as a mirror to let us know how much space our “stuff” actually takes up so we can know a sense of the impact of our digital selves on the physical. In most work environments I am struck by how disconnected my colleagues are from the physical ramifications of managing our digital content, the impact on our office environment, and the folks to ensure the security and protection of that content in our Information Technology department. There is a crisis of thinking about the impact of our content on the physical realm. There is also a psychological toll as well. I am often struck by a sort of mental fatigue by the sheer volume of accounts, storage spaces, servers, drives, and assets that I am responsible for, or for only as long as I continue to care for them.
I am reminded of the mix tapes of yore when reading about the XFR STN project at The New Museum that helps artists preserve, or excavate, artworks stored on floppy disks, videocassettes and other obsolete media.