Imagine rain. Now imagine rain but upwards, from the ground to the sky. The Cloud represents the condensation of our data streams. Above mere representation of digital flows and flaws, the imprint of this ephemeral conglomerate is very much real and convoluted. Climbing from the oceans and descending from the sky: pairings of protocols of send and receive. Synchronisation between local and global. Between the I and the yous.  

The imprint of the cloud is very much physical and it will become a much bigger imprint in the future. A digital colossus spread under our skin and above the planet, whose actual state can not and should not be concealed by innocuous looking fluffy clouds. What these graphical iterations represent is the lubricant that keeps the economy going, the people connected and the planet bearing the weight of all digital era and its server farms. Data is the new ciphered currency. Data is the new oil. 

I urge not to promote this telematic utopia. I urge for a demystification of the Cloud, a revealing of its singularity.

server /ˈsəːvə/

- a person or thing that serves
- a person assisting the celebrant at the celebration of the Eucharist
- a computer or computer program which manages access to a centralised resource or services in a network

The metaphor of the server passes unobserved. A server serves data for its clients through request and response protocols, its purpose being to share resources. I find it to be a very valid Romantic image of our society.

For some reason no one seems to be concerned about the cosmology of the Cloud. What are the laws that govern this large-scale structure? What is its provenance and what are its constituents? What is its value? How does it behave? How can we understand the Cloud in which our heads are in? 

The uninterrupted lining of the Cloud infrastructure does not allow peeks at its internal workings. Moreover, the symbolic weight of the cloud icon inflicts an immateriality that veils its doings even more. What we can do is pushing further epistemological assumptions and wait for a ray of technological light that can illuminate our lives of material boredom.

The allegory of the Cumulus hints to a dynamic architecture of conversion imposed on our streams, whose factual materiality is becoming more and more a real power structure erected on the pillars of its data centres. The standardised 19-inch rack frame structure is becoming therefore the universal foundation of our global village. 

A foundation provides a structure's stability from the ground. 

A foundation is forever.