Disentangling our environmentally-situated practices of thermal control: from Taipei’s overclockers to Accra’s repairers.

Digital growth and progress is depicted by our major internet corporations as non-materially situated: disconnected from the earth and its processes of extraction, optimisation and waste. Critically reframing this dominant trope and narrative, the contribution proposes to map the environmentally-situated practices of computing power: required to operate the energy and graphically-demanding objects of our platform and algorithmic cultures. Informed by theoretical inquiries and fieldworks, the contribution moreover focuses on one aspect of our sociotechnical cultures: the production - and leakage - of heat generated by our devices; and the consequent need to cool down these devices. The presentation is structured in three parts. First, it contextualises computing as inherently connected to thermal manipulation and control. From Mel Hogan’s inquiries on water infrastructures upon which our cloud platforms operate to Nicole Starosielski’s analysis of quantum technologies and their dependence on cryogenic refrigerators and liquid helium, the first section situates the topic inside a network of STS and environmental media-studies academics and scholars. The second and third section of the contribution map our practices of thermal control through two case-studies emerging from different lifecycle stages and sociotechnical contexts of our planetary computing culture. The first case-study emerges from Taipei, Taiwan. It follows a community of hardware hobbyists and gamers interested in practising extreme overclocking: pouring liquid-nitrogen on their computer chips in order to optimise their performances and benchmark energy-intensive programs and videogames. The second-case study is located in Accra, Ghana. It disentangles a task undertaken by second-hand computer repairers: replacing dusty fans and optimising their customer’s machines’ cooling systems in order to avoid them overheating. Placing these two inquiries in dialogue, the contribution proposes to map the environmentally-situated practices of thermal leakage and control. By doing so, it further contextualises the eco-material implications of our needs and desires for digital growth and progress.