HISK - Laureaten tentoonstelling

The Grid and The Cloud: How to Connect.

Gridandthecloud
  • Datum

    24/11/2017 17/12/2017
  • Locatie

    Espace Vanderborght, Brussel, BE
  • Curated by

    Elena Sorokina

A cloud is deceptive as elusive matter implying lightness, opacity, indeterminacy, and nomadism. Suspended in the atmosphere, frozen crystals and particles are in a transitional state between matter and gaz. The Cloud is now also the carrier and administrator of today’s addictive connectivity. Owned and managed by just a few corporations using tremendous amounts of electricity and water, the use of the cloud metaphor displays an astounding disconnection with reality.

The Cloud as an immaterial host of a free and open connectivity appeared at the beginning of 2000 when the grid as a pattern of “modernity” was certainly exhausted. This simple network of verticals and horizontals suggests openness but also oppression. As such, the electric or urban grid imply infinite structure, open-ended but equally delimitating. With unapologetic rigidity and materiality, the grid can not hide an inclination towards rationalising, controlling power, expansiveness, disciplining and colonising.