Credit: Alan Butler

Entanglement

ANNEX

Nomination

https://entanglement.annex.ie/Pavilion

Entanglement explores the materiality of data and the interwoven human, environmental, and cultural impacts of information and communication technologies. It highlights how data production and consumption territorialize the physical landscape and examines Ireland’s place in the pan-national evolution of data infrastructure by foregrounding the material footprint of the internet and cloud services.

The story of the materiality of data is entwined with the Irish landscape both historically and in the present day. From the landing of the first transatlantic cable at Valentia Island in 1858 to today where Ireland has become one of Europe’s primary data center hubs.

Entanglement uses the prism of heat to explore the material relationship between data infrastructure and architecture through a structure that collapses local and planetary-scale data infrastructure networks into the most primitive of socialising technologies: the campfire. The pavilion asserts that from the burning of campfires to the management of waste heat generated by contemporary data infrastructure, the production and distribution of information is intrinsically connected to the production and distribution of heat.

Credits

Fabrication: Space Forms Ltd., www.spaceforms.ie
Team: Sara Murphy and Frank Prendergast
Structural engineer: ARUP, Dublin, www.arup.com
Project engineers: Adela Tablas and Cathal Quinn
Graphic design: Alex Synge, https://thefirst47.com

Ireland at Venice is an initiative of Culture Ireland, in partnership with the Arts Council.

In 2021 the pavilion also has the support of:
The Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media; Royal Institute of Architects Ireland; TU Dublin School of Creative Arts; TU Dublin Graduate School of Creative Arts and Media; Trinity College Dublin; CONNECT Research Centre for Future Networks and Communications; University of Illinois at Chicago, Creative Activity Award; Valentia Slate, Office of Public Works and Green on Red Gallery.

https://strelkamag.com/en/article/states-of-entanglement-data-in-the-irish-landscape

Biography

ANNEX (INT) is a collaboration of artists, architects, and urban researchers born and/or based in Ireland, who came together to curate the Irish Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2021. ANNEX explores the material and cultural implications of large technical systems for the built environment with reference to architecture, art, computer science, and gaming platforms. Members include Sven Anderson, Alan Butler, David Capener, Donal Lally, Clare Lyster, and Fiona McDermott.