Background

Sounds from Earth is a collaborative artistic exploration between the Netherlands and South-Korea, Hackers & Designers, dianaband and Hee-ju, that aims to create a space to critically and imaginatively address the ecological impact of user technologies: from the construction of large-scale data centers that damage or even erase local habitats, to the fiber optic cables that impact the marine environment through heat, turbidity (during cable burial), risk of fatal entanglement of sea life and the introduction of artificial substrates into the ecosystem. Interventions into the deep-sea environment as well as terrestrial mining used to source materials such as lithium or cobalt for chips and other components inside our communication devices and network infrastructures are exhausting the earth and are the cause of geopolitical tensions and asymmetrical distribution of wealth and power.