PORT is a visit-based curatorial project on contemporary technological infrastructure. Initiated by Iris Long and He Zike in early 2021, the project is kindly supported by the Contemporary Visual Art Institute at Guizhou Normal University. With its first stop in Guizhou, China, “Under the Cloud: Port, Material Flows, Data Valleys” attempts to find a place for people between nature and technology within a temporal stack. The project also engages with the constant, ordinary foundational structures (including infrastructure and geological environments) that are either invisible or overlooked within our digital lives, as well as their lifespans within the context of deep time. Researchers and writers from humanities and social sciences backgrounds are invited on visits to techno-infrastructure sites—ranging from data centers and smart factories to environmental monitoring stations and radio telescopes—which could be seen as ports in our current technological landscape. The project encourages observational reports, creative videos, and other kinds of knowledge production based on these in-situ investigations and experiences.
Guizhou is increasingly known for big data industry policies, the China International Big Data Industry Expo, and Guizhou-Cloud Big Data. The city has witnessed how the data industry has transformed the economy, but it has also seen how big data, the cloud, and the ark have become embedded in the daily life of Guizhou in just a few years. “Under the Cloud” will focus on how the poetic, abstract imagery of the cloud became woven into real, everyday life in Guizhou. At the same time, we will examine data centers, monitoring facilities, and self-controlled, self-regulated automated systems with precise decision-making functions, and the ways in which this infrastructure reflects the technological forces acting on production relationships, as well as cultural and techno-political imagination.
Guiyang is a digital city, home to the world’s first big data-themed expo and China’s first big data exchange. Amidst the tumult of formulating policies and shoring up the industry, this distinctive industrial landscape has been built in a place often characterized by multi-faceted poverty issues, ecological fragility, and the late arrival of the Third Front. In 2020, the world’s largest single-segment radio telescope (FAST) was put into operation. At the end of that same year, the Arecibo radio telescope collapsed in a silent valley in Puerto Rico. Infrastructure lives out its life in another timeline, out of sight. Geological formations, infrastructure, cities, and humans become essentially invisible in the cosmic scale of time. Metaphorically, the human and non-human narratives entangled in infrastructure could flow toward a sensorial end. How can our fascination with infrastructure escape from impractical visions and make first-hand, on-site experience a more effective part of research? Port: Material Flow, Data Valleys attempts to answer this question, because sometimes we need to descend from the clouds to discover what lies under them.
Cover image courtesy of Wenxin Zhang
研究项目
端口:云下贵州
“端口”是龙星如和贺子珂于2021年初发起的一个关于科技基础设施叙事的长期项目。第一站为“云下贵州:端口,物质流,数据山脉”,由贵州师范大学当代视觉艺术研究中心作为项目支持,试图从多层的时间感切入人在自然与技术中的栖居,讨论数字生活之下坚固的、不变的、平凡的、枯燥的、巨大的、不可见的/被忽视的基础之物(包括基础设施和地质环境)及其在深度时间尺度下的生命历程。项目试图邀请人文和社科领域的研究者和写作者,进入包括数据中心、智能工厂、环境监测站和射电望远镜在内的“基础设施”内部,将它们视作科技地图上的诸多端口,以在地的方式,鼓励观察式报告、创意影像等形式的知识生产。
因大数据产业政策、数博会和“云上贵州”而名闻遐迩的贵州地区,在见证数据产业给经济带来的改变的同时,也见证了“大数据”、“云”、“方舟”这些带着科幻色彩的词汇,如何在数年间成为贵阳市民一知半解抑或如数家珍的常谈。“云上”的诗意和抽象,如何编织进“云下”的日常生活,是项目关注的起点。同时,项目聚集于数据中心、测绘基建和一系列可以自我控制、自我调节、精准决策的自动化系统,将折射出何种我们对技术力量重构生产关系、文化乃至科技政治的想象。
贵阳市是一座“数字”的城市,这里有全球首个以大数据为主题的博览会,也有全国第一家以大数据命名的交易所。由政策和产业同构的鼎沸之势,架构在以多维贫困与生态脆弱性为人所知的地貌之上,在这个“三线建设”的后方,形成一种奇特的地貌。2020年,坐落在喀斯特“天坑”里的世界最大单口径射电望远镜(FAST),正式投入运营。同年年底,在波多黎各寂静的山谷中,阿雷西博(Arecibo)单碟射电望远镜倒塌,在不可见之处,基础设施也在经历另一时间线的命程,地质地貌、基础设施、城市和人,被压缩在宇宙尺度上的毫厘之间。在隐喻意义上,关于基础设施中人与非人叙事,可能流向感性的结局。而对基础设施的迷恋,如何逃脱架空的、图式的想象,让实地经验和一手现场在研究中发挥更强的效力,也是项目试图回应的课题——我们偶尔可以从“云上”回归“云下”。
封面图片致谢张文心