“Our rural areas are dying”
19 July 2025
EMPTY LAND?
What is destroyed when (supposedly) ‘empty’ territories are transformed into the physical structures underpinning our contemporary digital culture and ways of working?
Not a cloud in sight (yet)
Following an initial scoping visit in September 2024, this research trip to Talavera de la Reina in Central Spain marks the beginning of ‘Cloud Factories’. The project seeks to give form to the multilayered histories, presents and futures inscribed to landscapes that have been designated by Big Tech firms and their allies to host the ‘Cloud’.
Human and more-than-human landscape users
WATER
By 2030, global demand for fresh water could outstrip supply by more than 40%. Data centres rely heavily on drinking water for cooling down their overheated processing units, especially when it gets hot outside. In Talavera de la Reina, where peak temperatures regularly exceed 40 degrees and there is virtually no rainfall over the summer, Meta’s planned data centre is projected to use 500 million litres of drinking water per year.
Not enough water to quench their thirst
The Tajo river and its tributaries provide a lifeline for local farmers and residents in one of Spain’s driest regions. Activists groups have found different ways of defending their precious rivers from overuse and pollution.
Still flowing – for now
‘Verdébora’, a local environmental group, organises monthly river cleanup activities. Inspired by the Swedish ‘plogging’ movement, volunteers combine physical exercise with care for nature. This Saturday, the group collected over 700 kg of trash in less than 2 hours.
Doing some heavy lifting
‘Tu Nube Seca Mi Rio’ (Your Cloud is Drying My River), a collective of digital and environmental rights activists, tackles the issue higher upstream. They fundamentally question the construction of data centres in Spain’s dry areas by piercing through the false promises and socio-environmental impacts of this rapidly growing industry.
Can we really afford to quench the Cloud’s thirst with so much precious drinking water?
The zone is expanding
OVERPOWERED BY THE SUN
We intended to produce a series of cyanotype photographs as a low-tech method to document the more-than-human elements shaping the landscape, so we brought a printing kit with us from the Netherlands. As relative beginners with this technique, we diligently followed the instructions provided by the Dutch maker of the kit.
When developing our initial print run, all rinsed papers turned almost solid blue. Almost all of the intricate shapes and textures from the materials we had placed on the photosensitive paper had vanished. The power of the midday sun had fully exposed the entire paper.
Printing dialogue with (too much) sun
Keen to find out what could have caused this failure, we gave it another try on the following day. This time, the prints turned out perfectly! The secret? Reducing the exposure time to less than 30% of the length indicated in the instructions. The Spanish sun was simply too powerful for Dutch standards.
Exposed just right
In places where (natural) clouds are rare and the sun intensity is exceptionally high, mega computing infrastructures are faced with conflicting conditions. While an abundance of sunshine brings with it a significant potential for renewable energy generation through solar or wind power, it also causes tremendous heat and drought, which can make a territory unliveable over time; especially if the already scarce water resources are further exploited to provide vital cooling for overheated computer chips.
Do you ever think of the sun when you are working in the Cloud?
Photosynthesis has its limits
FIRE
‘The fire has reached the stream. The green corridor is now black’
Less than an hour after we concluded our final visit to the location of the planned Meta hyperscale data centre in Gamonal/Talavera de la Reina, a large bush fire ripped through the landscape.
Burnt land as seen from (high) above
One day earlier, a local resident had guided us through the landscape to share his own fears and hopes for this territory. While growing increasingly skeptical of the project, he still expressed a profound desire for structural change in his local area. ‘There is nothing here. We need something to improve this region. Rural areas are dying’.
As he took us across the terrain, he pointed out how Meta had promised to maintain a ‘green corridor’ between the planned megainfrastructure and the neighbouring industrial estate to soften the destructive impact of the project. Now, he was alerting us via Whatsapp about the arrival of a large fire.
The (formerly) green corridor
Bush fires are not unusual on this dry land. The last large fire erupted almost exactly one year ago and burned through most of the Southern half of the terrain.
Remnants of last year’s fire
Made possible by
“Our rural areas are dying”
19 July 2025
EMPTY LAND?
What is destroyed when (supposedly) ‘empty’ territories are transformed into the physical structures underpinning our contemporary digital culture and ways of working?
Not a cloud in sight (yet)
Following an initial scoping visit in September 2024, this research trip to Talavera de la Reina in Central Spain marks the beginning of ‘Cloud Factories’. The project seeks to give form to the multilayered histories, presents and futures inscribed to landscapes that have been designated by Big Tech firms and their allies to host the ‘Cloud’.
Human and more-than-human landscape users
WATER
By 2030, global demand for fresh water could outstrip supply by more than 40%. Data centres rely heavily on drinking water for cooling down their overheated processing units, especially when it gets hot outside. In Talavera de la Reina, where peak temperatures regularly exceed 40 degrees and there is virtually no rainfall over the summer, Meta’s planned data centre is projected to use 500 million litres of drinking water per year.
Not enough water to quench their thirst
The Tajo river and its tributaries provide a lifeline for local farmers and residents in one of Spain’s driest regions. Activists groups have found different ways of defending their precious rivers from overuse and pollution.
Still flowing – for now
‘Verdébora’, a local environmental group, organises monthly river cleanup activities. Inspired by the Swedish ‘plogging’ movement, volunteers combine physical exercise with care for nature. This Saturday, the group collected over 700 kg of trash in less than 2 hours.
Doing some heavy lifting
‘Tu Nube Seca Mi Rio’ (Your Cloud is Drying My River), a collective of digital and environmental rights activists, tackles the issue higher upstream. They fundamentally question the construction of data centres in Spain’s dry areas by piercing through the false promises and socio-environmental impacts of this rapidly growing industry.
Can we really afford to quench the Cloud’s thirst with so much precious drinking water?
The zone is expanding
OVERPOWERED BY THE SUN
We intended to produce a series of cyanotype photographs as a low-tech method to document the more-than-human elements shaping the landscape, so we brought a printing kit with us from the Netherlands. As relative beginners with this technique, we diligently followed the instructions provided by the Dutch maker of the kit.
When developing our initial print run, all rinsed papers turned almost solid blue. Almost all of the intricate shapes and textures from the materials we had placed on the photosensitive paper had vanished. The power of the midday sun had fully exposed the entire paper.
Printing dialogue with (too much) sun
Keen to find out what could have caused this failure, we gave it another try on the following day. This time, the prints turned out perfectly! The secret? Reducing the exposure time to less than 30% of the length indicated in the instructions. The Spanish sun was simply too powerful for Dutch standards.
Exposed just right
In places where (natural) clouds are rare and the sun intensity is exceptionally high, mega computing infrastructures are faced with conflicting conditions. While an abundance of sunshine brings with it a significant potential for renewable energy generation through solar or wind power, it also causes tremendous heat and drought, which can make a territory unliveable over time; especially if the already scarce water resources are further exploited to provide vital cooling for overheated computer chips.
Do you ever think of the sun when you are working in the Cloud?
Photosynthesis has its limits
FIRE
‘The fire has reached the stream. The green corridor is now black’
Less than an hour after we concluded our final visit to the location of the planned Meta hyperscale data centre in Gamonal/Talavera de la Reina, a large bush fire ripped through the landscape.
Burnt land as seen from (high) above
One day earlier, a local resident had guided us through the landscape to share his own fears and hopes for this territory. While growing increasingly skeptical of the project, he still expressed a profound desire for structural change in his local area. ‘There is nothing here. We need something to improve this region. Rural areas are dying’.
As he took us across the terrain, he pointed out how Meta had promised to maintain a ‘green corridor’ between the planned megainfrastructure and the neighbouring industrial estate to soften the destructive impact of the project. Now, he was alerting us via Whatsapp about the arrival of a large fire.
The (formerly) green corridor
Bush fires are not unusual on this dry land. The last large fire erupted almost exactly one year ago and burned through most of the Southern half of the terrain.
Remnants of last year’s fire
Made possible by