Field Link
Land art installation, 2015.
In collaboration with Sam Kronick, Ben Lotan, and Tara Shi.
Description
Field Link consisted of the performative burial of a 350-meter-long fiber optic cable to create a new Internet node in the middle of a field in Mendocino county, CA, as an embodied performance and land art installation about internet infrastructure. The site of Field Link is less than 15 miles from the Manchester Cable Landing Station, where the submarine fiber optic cables that power the Internet connect Northern California to Japan. However, roughly half of the households in Mendocino county have marginal or no broadband access, as providers like AT&T skip over them in favor of serving high-yield customers in Silicon Valley.
Field Link was installed over the course of four days, as volunteers used shovels to dig a trench for the fiber optic cable, laid it, terminated it, and buried it to create the first-ever citizen-laid fiber optic connection. The act of laying fiber makes visible and physical the largely hidden network of layered conduit, plastic, metal and precious glass core that lies under the surface of the earth to power internet networks.
Performances, Exhibitions, and Screenings
“Field Link,” World Wide West, Point Arena, CA. July 18 2015.
Press
