The Lyceum of Future Ecologies

Katherine Brewer
Installation with video

Remote research labs dot the world. Scattered throughout this planet's forests, mountains, and coasts, humans gaze at the edges of the known. With the ubiquity of scientific knowledge in today's globally connected society, every detail can become a data point housed out of sight in server farms hidden in our cities. This data is then fed back to us, dictating where resources are allocated, which sounds get heard, and what light reaches our eyes. Before the internet age, collections like those in museums or universities were the primary touch point for the public to glimpse behind the curtain and see the process of gathering data. Now, the mega archive of the internet serves as a repository for any and every thing, with individualized, curated systems the public is expected to wade through. This installation speculates a world in which novel user interfaces have changed how we interact with information. When the threads of the world wide web are frayed, hyperlocal sustainable living is embraced, and the source of information becomes the site of its deposition.