Digital Earth

The launch of Vertical Atlas marks the conclusion of an extraordinary journey for Digital Earth. After five years of organizing fellowships, research labs, exhibitions and symposia on digital futures, we are closing the program and look forward to embarking on new paths.

We are extremely grateful for the incredible support from our inspiring fellows, partners, studio advisors, consultants, lecturers and editors, from our team, our donors and loyal followers. We look back at the amazing work we did together virtually and in Amsterdam, Beirut, Dakar, Dubai, Harare, Moscow, New Delhi, Paris, and Rotterdam.

Our colleagues at Hivos will continue supporting artists and creatives through the R.O.O.M. program which will have a Pan-African focus. Check hivos.org to stay up to date about future opportunities in 2023 and beyond.

Both websites digitalearth.art and verticalatlas.net will remain online. If you want to share some thoughts drop us a line at [email protected].

Be well and hopefully our paths will cross again in the future.

With gratitude,

The Digital Earth team

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Image: Katja Novitskova. Approximation (eyes of the world), 2021.

How do we represent digital narratives? Katja Novitskova delves into our relationship with technology, and the stories we tell with and about it. Approximation (eyes of the world) is a visual representation of the way in which algorithms process the world. The software that Novitskova used for this is based on the work of the mathematician Alan Turing, who in the previous century tried to use mathematical formulas to fathom biological patterns.

Discover more in Vertical Atlas, print and pdf available via the link in bio 🔗

Imaginary architectural spaces functioning as interfaces to consumerism can be modeled, rendered, animated, and experienced. 𝘈𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘨𝘢𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘊𝘪𝘵𝘺 presents a cityscape of real and proposed skyscrapers and landmarks from all of the Gulf cities combined into one skyline. As Gulf cities continue to grow and expand, the focus is on desire rather than practical urban problem-solving. New satellite cities and mega-projects are planned and announced so often that the idea of the future is a constant render and marketing campaign.

Scroll through the full cityscape in the hi-res pdf of Vertical Atlas 🔗

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Images: GCC Group. Amalgamated City, 2013.

People in Lubumbashi, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), have been waiting for Hercules to come and restore to them the wealth of their land. But Hercules doesn’t come. Rather than pin their hopes on a Greek myth, Mokha and Rediger inquire if they can resort to music and a heroic dance to obtain justice and re-appropriate the resources? Freely inspired by Georg Frideric Handel's Hercules' Choice, Dorine Mokha and Swiss composer Elia Rediger created a post-documentary oratorio for eleven musicians from Europe and the Congo, a dancer and a singer. It addresses the increasing demand for cobalt, the exploitation by multinationals and the destruction of the living space of local populations.

𝘏𝘦𝘳𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘦 𝘥𝘦 𝘓𝘶𝘣𝘶𝘮𝘣𝘢𝘴𝘩𝘪 is part of the contribution by On-Trade-Off, an artist collective striving to counter extractivist structures and speculate on possible alternative scenarios for mutual accounting on an interdependent planet, to open ideas beyond the protective localism of wealthy ecological policies, and the structural racism of global techno-capitalism. – On-Trade-Off

Discover more work from On-Trade-Off in Vertical Atlas, download Vertical Atlas via the link in bio!

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Image: Dorine Mokha and Elia Rediger. Hercule de Lubumbashi, 2019. Still.

“A new form of extractivism defines life in the 21st Century. It is one that reaches into the furthest corners of the biosphere and the deepest layers of human cognitive and affective being: the stack that underpins contemporary technological systems goes well beyond the multi-layered ‘technical stack’ of data modeling, hardware, servers, and networks. Today’s full stack reaches into capital, labor, and nature, while demanding an enormous amount from each.

𝘕𝘦𝘸 𝘌𝘹𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘴𝘮 𝘈𝘯 𝘈𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘭𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘖𝘧 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘱𝘵𝘴 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘈𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘨𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 gathers together different concepts and images of the new extractivism, proposing a semi coherent picture of the full stack. The concepts that it presents are mostly represented in the form of visual allegories. Dictionaries define allegory as a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one. All of these allegories and concepts gathered here add up to a blueprint—for a machine-like superstructure; a super allegory that encompasses the whole world. What we have here is an almost fractal allegorical structure—an allegory within an allegory within an allegory…“ – Vladan Joler

Read the full article in Vertical Atlas, head to the link in bio to download the free pdf!

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All images: Vladan Joler. New Extractivism An Assemblage Of Concepts And Allegories, 2020.

“The representational aspiration of the aerial image was insignificant in comparison to its ideological pursuits; the bird’s-eye view paved the way for a Eurocentric world order where avian landscapes were methodically examined through the scientific framing of ornithology and the production of visual empirical data. While aerial imaging tools strived to reproduce the bird’s perspective through machinic vision, new scopic regimes ultimately reflected the imagination of the architects; their entanglements with the history of colonialism made them anything but objective. Avian archives and collections came to represent imperial worldviews that contributed to the strategic erasure of local inhabitants and their indigenous knowledge.”

In the article ‘Avian Taxonomies And The Aerial Panopticon’ Heba Y. Amin investigates earth observation technologies, their colonial frameworks and subsequent political ramifications.

The publication is freely accessible to download via the link in bio 🔗





Image 1: Heba Y. Amin, The General's Stork I, 2020. 100 x 80.86 cm, archival color print. Courtesy of the artist.

Image 2: Heba Y. Amin, Artistic collage of Pfeilstorch, 2020. (documented at the University of Rostock by Markus Rack).

Image 3: Heba Y. Amin, Artistic rendering of first aerial photographs of Palestine (ca. 1900-20), Jordan Valley north of Jericho, 1500m, 2020. Courtesy of the artist. (ref. Matson G. Eric and Edith Photograph Collection).

Image 4: Heba Y. Amin, Artistic rendering of first aerial photographs of Palestine (ca. 1900-20), Jordan Valley north of Jericho, 1500m, 2020. Courtesy of the artist. (ref. Matson G. Eric and Edith Photograph Collection).

Image 5: Heba Y. Amin, As Birds Flying, 2016. 7'11" Video still. Courtesy of the artist.

The Vertical Atlas publication is officially launched! The book is now on sale at ArtEZ Press webshop (https://artezpress.artez.nl/en/books/vertical-atlas/).

Pick up your copy NAi Booksellers or via your local bookstore.

The free online publication is live at: https://verticalatlas.net/