Overwriting Memory

2025
Dimensions variable
Reclaimed ice core storage container from British Antarctic Survey, silica sand

This container that once held a piece of Antarctic ice from Dyer Plateau is now filled with silica sand.

Silica sand is a key material used to produce the optical fibers that power data centers and their digital data archives. The growing demand in data centers to support IT technologies, particularly generative AI, accelerates global warming, which in turn contributes to the loss of ice.

The Antarctic ice sheet stores around 60% of the world's total fresh water. This frozen water is not only a finite resource, but it also preserves the Earth’s atmospheric memory. Today, this natural memory is being increasingly replaced by human technological memory.