City in the Cloud - Data on the Ground - The Architecture of Data

This book investigates the hidden physical infrastructures behind the digital world. Data may appear immaterial, but it relies on extensive global networks: the extraction of raw materials, the deployment of thousands of undersea cables, and an exponentially growing number of energy-intensive data centers. While these data infrastructures shape global economies and politics, they truly do far more by profoundly impacting local communities, ecosystems, and labor conditions-realms so often rooted in (neo)colonial structures of exploitation. The contributions in this volume call for greater transparency, critical awareness, and care toward the material foundations of the data economy-as essential conditions for more equitable and accountable digital futures. Bringing together voices from architecture, media studies, technology, art, and political theory, City in the Cloud - Data on the Ground explores the elemental, spatial, and temporal dimensions of the architecture of data. The volume maps the costs of the data economy-ecological, social, and political-and opens up perspectives for rethinking digital infrastructures in the context of planetary resources, justice, and long-term responsibility.

Product details

• Assisted by: Cara Hähl-Pfeifer (Editor), Damjan Kokalevski (Editor), Andres Lepik (Editor)
• Publisher: Architangle
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 20.10.2025
• EAN: 9783966800389
• ISBN: 978-3-96680-038-9
• No. of pages: 208
• Dimensions: 235 mm x 24 mm x 310 mm
• Weight: 1159 g
• Illustrations: Fotografien
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > Architecture; Non-fiction book > Art, literature > Architecture