ruinStillPaid.com
2021credit: Gong Xinru, Cai Andong, Liu Mengzhu
网页、文本、视频、交互装置
java script、python、Chrome extension
“ 2016年，我国数据中心的保有量为5.6万个，一年耗电量为三峡大坝的1.5倍。至2019年，我国数据中心的保有量达到7.2万座，全球的数据中心达到42万座。如果按照成本来计算有效率，服务器平均处理1GB的数据需要2毛钱。《2020年国⺠经济和社会发展统计公报》2020年互联网上网人数为9.89亿人，全年移动互联网用户接入流量达到1656亿GB。预计2025年时，全球互联网用户每天创建的数据量预计将会高达463EB。”
“In 2016, China had 56,000 data centers consuming 1.5 times the annual electricity output of the Three Gorges Dam. By 2019, the number rose to 72,000, while worldwide centers reached 420,000. Processing 1GB of data costs about 0.2 RMB. In 2020, China’s 989 million internet users generated 165.6 billion GB of mobile traffic. By 2025, global users are expected to create 463 exabytes of data every day.”
数字废墟存在于一个暂时的静止状态中，保持着无用、价值不明和废弃的状态。 如今，数据已成为和土地、劳动力、资本、技术并列的五种生产要素之一。在所有的物质资源中，最大的无疑是土地，研究一个社会如何使用它的土地，能够在极大程度上对它的未来进行一个有效判断（E.F 舒马赫,1973）。而土地也由一个实体概念扩展至网络中的云层，富有的国家将抢先占领云层中的土地，接入互联网的用户每天不停地产生各种数据，数据被当作一种资本，成为平台持续扩张的基础，大平台成为大地主。但这些数据中有多少是有效的? 有多少曾经活跃的平台成为了废墟?这样数据废墟有多少? 保留这些废弃物需要多少真实世界中的实体资源?
浏览器作为用户接入互联网数据生产与交换的界面，被我们选择为介入这一关系的场所。观众浏览网页的过程中鼠标的交互、缓存的增加都会转化为购买力，并通过一旁的小票印刷机实时打印堆砌在一旁。数据的生产、存储、显示均会产生相对的消耗，通过爬取网页中存在约10年未更新的页面，进行大范围估算， 将其从虚拟的数据量化到可以被触及的金钱与购买力，并再现为真实的消费品。小组通过收集挖掘不同时期平台内留下的用户遗迹，尝试对网络空间内废墟范围进行估值。
Digital Ruins exist in suspension—useless, abandoned, and undefined in value. Today, data has joined land, labor, capital, and technology as the fifth factor of production. Land, once the most decisive resource, has expanded into the “clouds.” Wealthy nations seize this digital land, while users endlessly generate data that platforms hoard as capital. The platforms are becoming the new landlords. But how much of this data is meaningful? How many once-thriving platforms now lie in ruins?
We chose the browser—the interface where users access, produce, and exchange data—as the site of intervention. As visitors navigate, their mouse interactions and cache growth are converted into purchasing power, materialized in real time through a receipt printer that continuously piles slips of paper on the side. Data production, storage, and display all consume resources. By scraping web pages left untouched for nearly a decade, we estimated the scale of this debris, translating virtual data into tangible money and purchasing power, re-materialized as consumer goods. By excavating traces left on platforms across different periods, we attempted to measure the scope of these digital ruins.
