Internet Tour

An in-person journey through the physical Internet infrastructure, a tourist route of non-touristic places

An Art, Technology, and Culture Colloquium special event, presented with the Arts Research Center (ARC) and returning to the Bay Area as part of BCNM's 20th year anniversary. Co-sponsored by the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at UC Berkeley.

by Alex Saum-Pascual, Poet and Associate Professor of Contemporary Spanish Literature and New Media, and Mario Santamaría, Visual Artist and Lecturer, BAU, College of Arts and Design of Barcelona. With the participation of Asma Kazmi, Research-Based Artist and Associate Professor of Art Practice, the Fall 2024 Class of Questioning New Media, and the Indigenous Poetics Lab at the Arts Research Center.

Like any other digital technology, or the Internet itself, the current explosion of AI research and applications relies on their conceptualization as immaterial technologies. The idea of clean, ethereal networks whose data is stored in a bodiless Cloud is nothing but a fallacy that hides thousands of miles of fiber optic cables, innumerable data centers, and increasing global energy consumption. The Internet that feeds and fuels AI is made up of a series of materials, constructions, and interventions that are hidden from the naked eye; from inconspicuous buildings in the centers of our cities, to urban beaches where the undersea cables that connect countries and continents are buried under the sand.

“Internet Tour” is an initiative by artist Mario Santamaría, returning to the Bay Area for a second consecutive year, again in collaboration with Alex Saum-Pascual, and together with the Berkeley Center for New Media and the Arts Research Center. Together, we’ll embark on a collective exploration of the world’s preeminent technology hub, the San Francisco Bay Area, as we unearth its Internet infrastructure. Traveling by bus and on foot across Berkeley, Emeryville, and Oakland, this guided tour will also feature poetic and artistic experiences. We’ll visit the places through which our voices, images, cryptocurrencies, and future intelligences circulate as cursed matter that flows from the same wound. Where to go from there?

Limited tickets available for purchase here.

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Click here for the full 2024-25 Art, Technology, and Culture Colloquium season.