F is for Farm
you’re on an open road. driving through countryside. fields of green dotted with purple, pink, and yellow go past where your eye can see. your destination has been predetermined but a sign says “server farm up ahead.” just 3.4 miles. you veer off of the main road and drive into what looks like a farmers market maybe? or camp ground?
people of all ages are tending to the land. in the middle stands a tall tree, with a thick trunk wider than your hands can embrace on the other side. an opening in the trunk houses a computer server. inside of this elder tree, the server lives. walking toward this place you’ve stumbled upon, you approach a steward of the land. “what is this place?,” you ask.
“Hi, welcome. we are the technicians. this is the server farm for our community. we ensure that energy is used carefully, as to not over consume. as the sun shines, and nurtures the earth and the living organisms that grow, our server is powered. information is relayed at the speed of trust in the elements to provide as needed. our server is planted inside of our mother tree. as the server carries our memory it is embedded into the motherboard.”
“our memories, our histories, live and are stored in the trunk and rooted in this land. our motherboard is part of a network, storing the legacies of our interconnected communities. our server is tended to in community as only one of the technologies preserved. as technicians we ensure the health of our land as the source technology for all. and when the sun sets the server goes down to not only conserve energy but to return us to each other and our traditions. ”
this dream for a future — for a present — in which server farms are abundant spaces that care for communities, was not one that i thought i so deeply held until now in the words above. i’ve been ideating a science fiction story on how software and hardware are “eating the world” (a phrase i first heard used in gross excitement for the future of amazon to wipe out bookstores, and the financial promise of investing in software over people), to interrogate the harms caused by the ongoing practices of the tech industry and culture.
However, i realized in writing the words up above that writing from a space of hope fills me with an overwhelming craving to live inside the story i crafted in my mind. i felt a joy in the scaffolding for this world i didn’t know that i wanted to exist. the dream feels possible.
i’ve become a dedicated reader of the software for artists book series, and attendee over the last year. this passage from the series’ editor and writer willa köerner illustrates so poignantly how imagination helps us reworld without the cost of capitalism:
“it is shortsighted to look at the tools we have at out disposal now, and consider how we can use them to remake the world. while promising, even the in-development tools of Web3 are far too limiting. instead, we need to aim higher, with more imagination. sci-fi is instructive because in many ways the authors who write it are inventing the future without actually building anything.
what they instead create is a vision we can all hold in our minds of something that comes next, something to reach for; their words carve a blueprint for what might be possible, and that in and of itself is a tool. so what if, instead of relying on actual sci-fi to set the tone of the future, we were all invested in creating a set of speculative fictions that we can collectively build towards?” — willa koerner1
sometimes referred to as data centers, we must interrogate what is at the center of these sites. server farms are increasingly popping up because of the rise of AI, fueling the climate crisis. in 2022, “a partnership between the real estate investors Lincoln Property Company and Harrison Street purchased 190 acres in New Albany, a small city about 20 miles outside of Columbus where the pair plan to begin construction on a 200-megawatt data center by the end of the year. The project's neighbors include Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon – all of whom have similar plans, or are already underway with major data center projects.”2
when they call them farms3, it becomes so easy to imagine our data so sweetly frolicking freely out in a pasture among the trees — and maybe alongside cows and chickens too. it’s a similar trickery used by the meat and dairy industry, who play up the iconography of the american farmhouse in their packaging. as the internet replaces the physical remnants of our information, from our news and music to books, recipes, and photo albums, our data runs hot, and must be housed.
there’s a haunting similarity to the historical and present practices of corporate agricultural giants, in monopolizing the land, resources, and viability of actual farmers, to the monopolization of our data and digital infrastructure. even down to the progress narrative laden in this kind of digital expansion (think going out west), that promises us a place on the internet but it will never be a place in which we can fully inhabit. our footprint is always first wedged into the earth.
the more i write, the more i realize how crucial our dreams are for our survival beyond the limits set for us. every thing was first an idea or a dream that felt real. we can no longer afford to not live inside of our imaginations. this issue is for a dream for our servers to one day be situated within our communities, as part of vast networks of care.
“What we cannot imagine cannot come into being...As we move toward our desired destination we chart the journey, creating a map.” — bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions
to aid in your visions for reworlding beyond the tools we have, i’m excited to share my recent conversation with ayana zaire cotton for her aptly named podcast, for the worldbuilders.4 listen to episode 049 to hear the expanse of our conversation from honoring creative transformation, the glossary as Black method, and the archive.
software for artists: untethering the web, pg 16, 2022.
“Data centers are sprouting up as a result of the AI boom, minting fortunes, sucking up energy, and changing rural America,” Business Insider, 2023.
“Server Farms Spreading In The DFW Area: Data centers are providing an economic boon to North Texas,” Texas standard, 2015.
“New Terms and Conditions with Ravon Ruffin Feliz,” For the Worldbuilders, Ep. 049.
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