Department

College of Art and Design

Document Type

Dissertation

Abstract

In this analysis, I will firstly be presenting the current knowledge concerning the materiality of the internet based Cloud, which I will henceforth be referring to as simply the Cloud. For organisation purposes I have created two umbrella categories under which I place the ongoing research in the field. Scholars have been addressing the issue of Cloud materiality through broadly two prisms: sociological materiality and geopolitical materiality. The literature of course deals with the intricacies of the Cloud based on its present ferromagnetic storage functionality. However, developments in synthetic biology have caused private tech companies and University spin-offs to flirt with the idea of a DNA-based cloud system. This prospect inevitably gives birth to unaddressed questions pertaining to the biological (nucleotides instead of magnetic disks) materiality of an upcoming cloud system of this nature, since the relevant queries bleed into fields of materiality of the human soul and body and even the materiality of knowledge and memory. This novel investigation I will be conducting concerns a speculative cloud model, the technological mechanics of which are presently in an embryonic stage, and a basic question which is if this fabricated creation could be considered potentially alive.

Committee Chair

Desmond, Michael

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_dissertations.5462

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