The Cosmology of Internet Infrastructure

Esther Mwema, award-winning artist and digital inequalities expert, presents the outcomes of her project Afro-Grids ‘Cosmology of Internet Infrastructure’. This folklore art project—awarded by the Green Screen Coalition and supported by the Mozilla Foundation – analyzes three possible tech-enabled climate futures, highlighting the dilemma between expanding Internet infrastructure to bridge the digital divide and the extraction of resources in the Global South.

The artwork explores cosmologies, or ingrained value systems, that reinforce colonial logic in the expansion of Big Tech into Internet infrastructure worldwide. This keynote will present three visualizations of these cosmologies – past, transitionary, and future – based on essays written in collaboration with Elie Arden, Emsie Erastus, and Raymundo Vasquez Ruiz.

• The past cosmology reflects the colonial logic that has shaped the Internet infrastructure landscape up to 2024.
• The transitionary cosmology interrogates green infrastructure and the present-day logics shaping its development.
• The future cosmology envisions Internet infrastructure rooted in Afro-feminist and decolonial perspectives.

Those who attend the talk will gain an understanding of the historical and present-day parallels of Internet infrastructure and its ties to (digital) colonialism. Additionally, expand their reflections on how art signals the cosmologies and ingrained value systems we hold about (digital) society.

This programme session is supported by Stiftung Mercator. / Dieser Programmpunkt wird durch die Stiftung Mercator unterstützt.