The Invisible Environmental Cost of Our Online Lives
By Jekaterina Kaizere : :
Digital Weight is a research-informed media artwork that renders the so-called immaterial internet into a material, time-based experience. Across 8 minutes a single landscape is regenerated at a fixed cadence. The frame appears almost unchanged, while an on-screen counter accumulates three quantities per iteration: electricity (Wh), carbon (g CO₂), and cooling water (mL). Values are derived from published per-unit coefficients: energy per text-to-image inference, average grid-emission factors (≈480 g CO₂/kWh), and typical data-centre water-usage effectiveness (≈2 L/kWh). The method is simulation-driven and auditable: coefficients are stated explicitly; transparent formulas map them into temporal increments; LOW/MID/HIGH scenarios translate the numbers into comprehensible scales (e.g., per million images). The image mutates in vertical bands that echo a field of planting stakes – chosen as a material metaphor for a hyperobject that rises from the ground and draws resources – and all frames were individually generated.
The piece constructs a temporal landscape whose axis of change is duration. The opening frame recurs three times – at the beginning, the mid-point, and the end – setting a rhythm of return. In the second half, the rhythm compresses: a dark phase of depletion is followed by a brief surge of oversaturation. The curve then descends and closes back on the initial view. This dramaturgy forms a closed energetic loop: the system reproduces an almost identical image while steadily consuming resources. The viewer experiences accumulation, monotony, and mild fatigue – the affective analogue of repetitive digital labour.
Sound operates as measurement. A three-layer mono composition at 48 kHz shapes perception without melodic rhetoric: a low industrial hum evokes the mass of infrastructure; a per-image tick marks two generations per second; brief band-passed compute bursts articulate spikes at visual inversions and glitches. The mix prioritises legibility of the counters while sustaining a physical presence in the room.
Conceptually, the work positions the cloud as infrastructure – aligned with Timothy Morton’s hyperobject and Karen Barad’s entanglement – where images ride on energy, water, and matter. Technical metrics become embodied time. Repetition aligns with rising counters, and the audience encounters a clear, felt cost for each unit of digital production. The project invites attention to footprint and scale, and opens space for responsible imagination in image culture and computation.
Format / tech: Single-channel video with sound, 8:01 min, 16:9 (2560×1440), H.264.
Audio (3 layers, mono, 48 kHz):
- steady “data-center hum” (low spectral bed)
- per-image metronome (2 ticks/sec)
- short compute bursts at key events
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