How to Map the Cloud through Photography: &quot;Concealment&quot; and &quot;Stability&quot; in Acid Clouds' Photography Series

There is a pressing need for new articulation and tools to make the cloud more understandable. Data center visualization has become increasingly relevant for this purpose. The goal of this paper is to investigate what photography can mean medium-wise by using it to represent the cloud through photographing data centers. The medium of photography for representing the cloud has not yet been researched. Central to this research is the analysis of the photography of Acid Clouds that photographs datacenter exteriors as a means to map the cloud. By the way in which photography is discursively embedded as both informative and desensitizing, photography of data centers as a form of visualizing the cloud can easily, instead of offering visibility, make the cloud more distractive but omnipresent, as well as reinforce ideas of security and complicity. This paper develops two concepts, "concealment" and "stability," that can be used by researchers and artists who want to work with the interplay...Show moreThere is a pressing need for new articulation and tools to make the cloud more understandable. Data center visualization has become increasingly relevant for this purpose. The goal of this paper is to investigate what photography can mean medium-wise by using it to represent the cloud through photographing data centers. The medium of photography for representing the cloud has not yet been researched. Central to this research is the analysis of the photography of Acid Clouds that photographs datacenter exteriors as a means to map the cloud. By the way in which photography is discursively embedded as both informative and desensitizing, photography of data centers as a form of visualizing the cloud can easily, instead of offering visibility, make the cloud more distractive but omnipresent, as well as reinforce ideas of security and complicity. This paper develops two concepts, "concealment" and "stability," that can be used by researchers and artists who want to work with the interplay between the medium of photography, cloud infrastructure, and the cloud.Show less

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How to Map the Cloud through Photography: "Concealment" and "Stability" in Acid Clouds' Photography Series