NOUN \’klaud\
A cloud: a visible mass of water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere. Formed when liquid H2O condenses in the sky to create water vapor.
The Cloud: a complex, globalized digital network. “The Cloud” refers to servers that are accessed over the Internet, and the software and databases that run on those servers. Cloud servers are located in data centers all over the world. By using cloud computing, users, and companies do not have to manage physical servers themselves or run software applications on their own machines.
The weight of a cloud, uses video and image-based work to linguistically separate the language of a physical, ethereal cloud and digital storage. Although the name suggests a floating, ephemeral, and nebulous form, the digital cloud is physically grounded in racks of data servers, rows of concrete monoliths, and endless spools of wire, requiring massive amounts of natural resources. For example, The National Security Agency (NSA) data servers, located in Utah, use 65 megawatts of power and approximately 1.7-6 million gallons of water-a day- simply to operate.
Far from weightless, this NSA cloud functions as a water-sucking panopticon in the dry landscape of the mountain west. The tension between a pithy marketable name, cloud, and the actual cost of resources through colossal water and power consumption illuminates the United States’ complicated relationship between power and land; cybersecurity and natural resources; and surveillance and water rights.
By tracing the origins of the data centers’ water source, this series draws attention to the locality of these issues and asks, “Can data-consuming habits and water regulations change when connections between the screen and backyard are made?” Although the relationship between one’s digital footprint and natural resource consumption is often concealed, forgotten, and rendered invisible, they remain materially present, and the separation is merely an illusion.
Images courtesy of Zachary Norman.