Episode 1 of The People’s Cloud presents the origins of the so-called accidental megastructure of the Internet through the voice and memory of two veteran engineers of the industry who think back to the moment the first transatlantic Internet connection was made, and the early days of personal computing where floppy disks were shared between friends in a garage. Visit thepeoplescloud.org for more information. Directed by Matt Parker Camera by Sebastien Dehesdin Additional Camera by Michael James Lewis Sound Design and Animation by Matt Parker Dubbing Mix by Chris Amblin What is the Cloud vs What Existed Before? is the first chapter in a six-part series containing interviews, abstractions, recordings and narratives composed in a bid to ask questions around the complexity of media infrastructure. The people interviewed have all kindly volunteered their time to meet and talk with us for many hours. The sites we visited include subsea network nodes, data centres, bitcoin facilities and super computers. This first episode follows two industry veterans as they trace their histories of the Cloud. As is the case with all of the chapters in this series, the audio and video material is almost entirely captured from the field recording trips. All musical composition or animated abstraction is a result of working with these original source materials in an attempt to rematerialize the internet through audiovisual means. We take the sound of the species as seriously as the visual spectacle and we ask that viewers do the same by listening with good speakers or headphones. The People’s Cloud is an artist documentary series that gets to the bottom of the Internet; investigating the ecology and impact of cloud computing on the lives of those who use it, the places it is physically located in and the people who work to maintain it.
Episode 2 of The People’s Cloud. We speak to some of the best Internet infrastructure technicians in the world and ask them to try and explain how the Internet works as concisely as possible. End result? It turns out that the Internet is pretty complicated! Visit thepeoplescloud.org for more information. Directed by Matt Parker Camera by Sebastien Dehesdin Additional Camera by Michael James Lewis Sound Design and Animation by Matt Parker Dubbing Mix by Chris Amblin Working Out The Internet: It's A Volume Game is the second chapter in a six-part series containing interviews, abstractions, recordings and narratives composed in a bid to ask questions around the complexity of media infrastructure. The people interviewed have all kindly volunteered their time to meet and talk with us for many hours. The sites we visited include subsea network nodes, data centres, bitcoin facilities, hydroelectric power stations and super computers. This second episode reveals how once we go beyond the Internet as more than just a Matrix-esque world of zeros and ones, we begin to reveal a set of businesses in constant negotiation over sharing network infrastructure and bandwidth, we begin to realise that there is a precarity to the increasing Internet consumption of our every-day lives. Internet users are at the mercy of current demand, load, power, capacity and human negotiation. As is the case with all of the chapters in this series, the audio and video material is almost entirely captured from the field recording trips. All musical composition or animated abstraction is a result of working with these original source materials in an attempt to rematerialize the internet through audiovisual means. We take the sound of the species as seriously as the visual spectacle and we ask that viewers do the same by listening with good speakers or headphones. The People’s Cloud is an artist documentary series that gets to the bottom of the Internet; investigating the ecology and
Episode 3 of The People's Cloud focusses on the fibre optic cable network that spans both land and see, making up 97% of the world's network infrastructure. We talk about the history of submarine telecommunications cables with some of Europe's experts in the industry as well as the problems the fibre optic cable industry faces today. We look at where these cabled infrastructures operate, physical, on land and at sea and find them to exist in the most peculiar places. Visit thepeoplescloud.org for more information. Directed by Matt Parker Camera by Sebastien Dehesdin Sound Recording by Matt Parker Dubbing Mix by Chris Amblin Thanks to the staff at Farice and Virgin Media. As is the case with all of the chapters in this series, the audio and video material is almost entirely captured from the field recording trips. All musical composition or animated abstraction is a result of working with these original source materials in an attempt to rematerialize the internet through audiovisual means. We take the sound of the species as seriously as the visual spectacle and we ask that viewers do the same by listening with good speakers or headphones. The People’s Cloud is an artist documentary series that gets to the bottom of the Internet; investigating the ecology and impact of cloud computing on the lives of those who use it, the places it is physically located in and the people who work to maintain it.
Episode 4 of The People's Cloud asks the big question, how much data is there? It's exponentially increasing but at what cost to global ecology? How do we sustain uninterruptable power for the material foundations of media infrastructure that is growing at such a rate without utterly crippling the carbon load of nations who host such sites? This episode is an introduction into the blunt materiality of digital media and the efforts made by companies to continue facilitating demand and driving costs down through efficiency. Save money for the shareholders. Use less energy. Save the planet. Visit thepeoplescloud.org for more information. Directed by Matt Parker Camera by Sebastien Dehesdin Additional camera by Michael James Lewis Sound Recording by Matt Parker Dubbing Mix by Chris Amblin Thanks to the generosity of time from staff at CWI, Equinix, Farice, Landsvirkjun, SurfSARA, Verne Global and Virgin Media.
Episode 5 of The People's Cloud - Our electronic devices are converging. More and more devices are taking up the near infinite tags offered through IPV6. The Internet Things, The Connected House, The Driverless Car. Who owns this? What is the demand for the infrastructure underpinning its success? What are the risks? What does the industry think it needs to do to offer this hyperspeed increase into a sensor-laden world. Visit thepeoplescloud.org for more information. Directed by Matt Parker Camera by Sebastien Dehesdin Additional camera by Michael James Lewis Sound Recording by Matt Parker Dubbing Mix by Chris Amblin Thanks to the generosity of time from staff at CWI, Equinix, Farice, Landsvirkjun, SurfSARA, Verne Global and Virgin Media.