Song of data centers

Times change, our life, environment and habits change. Twenty years ago, no one could have imagined that once he would stroke his computer, saying: “Come on, dear, you can, I believe in you” (I hope not only I do this). This attitude was made possible by the desire of the developers of gadgets to make their creations and the global network, which they are connected, an integral part of human life. However, most users do not even know what is happening “on the other side”.



An interesting look at the life of data centers offered composer Matt Parker, who decided to capture the sound of the virtual world. Compositions made from a set of sounds recorded in the data center, he presented in his project Cities and Memory.
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Matt recorded the source material for his work in the data center of the City University of his hometown of Birmingham, United Kingdom. The original audio material was reworked, resulting in a kind of remix . Microphones were installed at the entrance and in the aisles between the racks. It is worth noting that Matt recently graduated from the Birmingham Conservatory, where he studied composition, music theory and audio technology.

Parker decided not to limit himself to creating only a track, for a more accurate transfer of the atmosphere, he also created three video installations.

DC1 - Lighting up the Information Superhighway

DC2 - Isn't There

DC3 - Turbulence in the Chamber

Matt Parker comments on his project: “The idea is to illuminate the physical nature behind cloud computing and remind people that while people’s phones and smartphones are silent in their pockets, tablets and laptops are quietly on tables or in backpacks, somewhere far from the hive of hard drives and fans work diligently, ensuring the livelihood of the information world, which has become for us an integral part of everyday life. "

Everything in the world publishes, has its own sound. Parker noted that every piece of space in the data center has an individual voice. The composer installed stereo pairs in the corridor entrances with server racks in order to capture the general background sound. In addition, he experimented with the placement of microphones in the aisles. Once he installed six microphones that were turned to six separate stands, which resulted in the unique sounds of each of them. These sounds were used in the installation:

The Cloud is More than Air and Water

Parker's project is still quite young, but he already has his followers.
Timo Arnal presented his installation under the name "Internet Machine", which was presented at the art exhibition "Big Bang Data" in Barcelona. Frames and sound were recorded and captured in the Telefonica data center located on the outskirts of Madrid.



Nowadays everything sooner or later becomes an object of creativity. We are sincerely glad that our favorite servers did not remain on the creative side.