Check the programme here. Convened by architect Marina Otero Verzier, Territorio Ectoplasma is a week-long critical studies programme that looks at the territorial dynamics and often overlooked spaces and bodies that sustain the activity of metropolitan centers. In particular, it focuses on the digital infrastructure making possible our datafied, urban life. In the last decade, the world has experienced unprecedented production and consumption of data. According to International Data Corporation (IDC), global data will grow by 23 percent annually from 2020 to 2025. The data-driven developments in planning, climate science, and healthcare, as well as the further implementation of AI, the Internet of Things, and the Metaverse, will only exacerbate this condition. Every byte of data has an impact. The carbon footprint of digital devices, the internet, and the infrastructures supporting them account for about 3.7% of global greenhouse emissions, a percentage that, according to some estimates, will double by...

MARINA OTERO'S PRESENTATION Data centers are a fundamental component of today’s digital infrastructure. This session focuses on their socio-political implications and environmental impacts, and their relevance for the future of data sovereignty. MÉL HOGAN (online) 5-6 PM Since 2012, Mél Hogan has advanced research on data storage. Her work explores alternatives to data centers and their excessive water and energy consumption. She also critically analyzes technological solutions that allegedly could solve the data deluge, such as DNA-based storage. Currently, Hogan is curious about how we’re using massive data centers to power humanoid robots, embodied AI, holograms, the ‘metaverse’, and chatbots. Dr. Mél Hogan is Director of the Environmental Media Lab (EML) and Associate Professor of Communication, Media and Film, University of Calgary (Canada). Her research focuses on data centers, death in the cloud, and genomic media – each understood from within the contexts of planetary catastrophe and collective anxieties about...