Copenhagen internet infrastructure walk

This walking tour was designed by Aslak Ransby, Ingrid Burrington and Janet Gunter for the Internet Infrastructure Summit at Techfestival.

The infrastructure of the internet begins with machines crushing rocks and those rocks must come from somewhere. In the near future, one such place could very well be in Greenland. In order to fully prepare yourself before heading out on the walk, you should take the time first to watch and discuss the documentary film Kuannersuit/Kvanefjeld by Joshua Portway and Lisa Autogena. Lisa Autogena introduced the film at the summit:

Instructions

This walk takes you through the sights, sites and stories of infrastructure, power and sustainability, around the Techfestival. The walk is designed for groups of 3–4 people. The walk is best if you group up with people you don’t know (yet), that have mixed backgrounds and perspectives.

Choose a narrator in the group. The role of the narrator is to read the title, description and questions for each stop for the group. Discuss the questions and topics presented at each stop on your way to the next.

This is your map, but you are the navigators steering the course of the walk. Be open to new ideas and views. Include the entire group in the discussions and make new friends along the way. Take notes and pictures that document your journey.

— Aslak, Ingrid & Janet

Your first stop is Sort/Hvid (1) in kødbyen.

1. Sort/Hvid: Looking for the overlooked

“Information infrastructure is a tricky thing to analyze. Really good, usable systems disappear, almost by definition. The easier they are to use, the harder they are to see. As well, most of the time, the bigger they are, the harder they are to see. Unless we are electricians or building inspectors, we rarely think about the myriad of databases, standards, and instruction manuals subtending our reading lamps, much less about the politics of the electric grid that they tap into.”

— From Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences, by Geoffrey C. Bowker & Susan Leigh Star.

Questions:

• We can’t see radio waves, but we can see the devices that send and receive them. Where is the tech that connect our phones to the network?
• We hardly notice working infrastructures, and how far they reach. But what happens when infrastructures around us fail and break down?

2. Dybbøl’s Bridge: Sizing up clouds

The physicality and scale of the datacenters that make out the cloud eludes our imagination. Looking around you see the IKEA build site, the Fisketorvet mall and behind you the Nexus CPH bulding complex. Large areas by Danish urban standards, but small in data center scale.

The floor area of the Fisketorvet mall (58,000 m2) is approximately the same size as the datacenter Facebook is building near Odense, Denmark (55,000 m2) and only one third of the size of the upcoming data center Apple is building near Viborg, Denmark (166,000 m2).

Questions:

• What do you think data centers need all of that space for?
• What data center resources do you imagine your presence in the cloud requires? How many meters squared would your data take up?

3. Fisketorvet: Moving through the frontend

Our everyday interactions with technology infrastructures shape our culture, politics and values. The shops in the mall mirror how we relate to technology as a society. Filled with consumer goods disassociated creation, supply chains and environmental impacts.

Questions:

• What does the presentation of tech here say about our relationship with technology and the environment?
• How do you assess repairability, privacy properties or the environmental impact of the smartphones on display?
• What would a sustainable mall experience look like?
• How are data centers and malls architecturally or rhetorically similar?

4. H.C. Ørstedværket: Old and new power

With Bitcoin's estimated yearly energy usage surpassing that of Austria, we are reminded that the cybers, information highways and clouds are jacked into our power grids. Smart technologies are increasingly consuming energy, and that begs to question what kinds of computations are sustainable and desirable.

That energy consumption in and of itself is also a piece of a complex geopolitical dance. This power station, for instance, switched from coal to natural gas in 1994. Today Ørsted (formerly DONG Energy (not kidding)) is a major importer of natural gas from Gazprom. The gas is not really needed to fulfill Danish energy needs, so the company resells the gas to other European countries.

Questions:

• What would taking responsibility for the power usage and emissions created by computing look like? (Fines, regulations, standards? Something else?)
• Who should be held responsible for that energy use–the consumer using a cloud service or the cloud’s architect?
• What do sustainable information infrastructures look like?

5. Guldminen: Toxins and gold

Guldminen at the Vasbygade recycling station describes itself as “a laboratory for developing new ways to recycle, upcycle, repair, redesign and distribute” what gets delivered to the recycling station.

Defunct or unused electronics are both potential toxic waste threat and potential new recycling project. But often in consumer electronics design built-in obsolescence is the norm, rather than repairability or recyclability. The toxicity and environmental risks at the beginning of a device’s life cycle (through mineral extraction and refinement) is mirrored in the end of its life cycle.

Questions:

• When or how does the tech you carry lose its usefulness?
• How could its life and usefulness be extended?
• What would consumer electronics as an industry look like if all manufacturing ceased and all future computers and phones had to be made from recycled parts?
• What changes need to happen in industry to reduce social, environmental and waste hazards? How many of them are feasible while still maintaining the same access to and production of hardware?

6. Floating city: Sustainable futures

Floating City is a community building decentralized sustainable solutions from below. They aim to empower people to reuse resources that normally gets wasted.

Organizing in the Anthropocene to halt the death spiraling of the climate it no small feat. But looking around you and seeing the buildings shooting up around you. The powerplant, factories and railroads are testament to what action at a scale can achieve.

Questions:

• How do we build a culture of reuse and repair?
• What is sustainable infrastructures? Can we agree on a definition?
• How should we act?

Infrastructure walk route

1. Sort/Hvid
2. Dybbøls Bridge
3. Fisketorvet
4. H.C. Ørstedværket
5. Guldminen
6. Floating city
1. Sort/Hvid