COMM 123 Chapter 0: Carruth - The Digital Cloud and the Micropolitics of Energy Notes
21 Mar 2018
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Document Summary
The digital cloud and the micropolitics of energy. Computing offers harmonious marriage btwn cost savings and energy savings for companies that move their less energy-efficient networks off-site. Multinational corps represent the cloud as an ethereal system for communication and connection without a footprint. Clouds ubiquity makes it difficult to assume an outside, critical perspective on its infrastructure. What is inside is inevitably outside and vice versa. Web is so ubiquitous that cultures and communities that are plugged in infrastructure becomes imperceptible. Metaphor of digital could is rich in aesthetic and emotional appeals. Marketing of the cloud works to cultivate awe at its enormous scale and complexity. Everyday experiences of the cloud often move online users out of the realm of the sublime and into the realm of the magical. Devices seem to open up conduits into impossible to apprehend yet wondrous worlds. Appeal to imagine one"s life uploaded to the cloud.
