Benjamin Elmer
Cloud Address Earth
Cloud Address Earth is a speculative simulation that explores ecological, cultural, and technological futures through emergence and worldmaking. Set against the backdrop of climate-related human migration, the project follows a near-future nomadic movement taking direct action to establish a deep listening infrastructure for the natural environment. The convergence of a physical interface and a model world invites players to participate in the nomadic telos and construct decentralized infrastructure that reframes our technological relationship to the natural world.
Game Board Close-up
The project focuses on a group of eight nomads who have traveled to the rugged and remote Owyhee Canyonlands of Southeast Oregon. Here, water scarcity, wildfires, and changing vegetation patterns have made the effects of climate change starkly visible. The group has come here to catalog and preserve the native ecology, adding the area to a worldwide network of deep-listening devices. They approach the river via the twisting gravel roads of Leslie Gulch, a geographic feature that acts as a key access point for the distribution and maintenance of their equipment. As the nomads’ listening devices monitor this challenging terrain, they continuously collect data on weather patterns, wildlife populations, soil composition, and other environmental factors, which is then fed to a global cloud-based repository.
Landscape overview
Their deep-listening devices are more than just tools; they embody the nomadic telos— a desire to integrate non-human communication into a new form of planetary intelligence that transcends human-centric models of governance. The machines imagine the possibility of a “stack” that leverages our global computing infrastructure in a way that is free from political geographies and economies. Ecological deep listening serves as a critical practice of James Bridle’s proposal for a new relationship between technological entities and the earth, addressing all living beings as a part of the web of action that must take place to live within a changing climate. The project posits that nomadic living can become a generative cultural force, facilitating the development of infrastructure crucial for planetary intelligence.
PV Tents In The Owyhee Canyonlands
The project communicates through the medium of simulation because of its ability to condense large time spans, complex systems, and emergence into an accessible, real-time format. The custom-built controller allows players to alter the simulation and directly engage in the creation of a new ecological and cultural paradigm. This interaction between hard and soft space connects the physical and digital models, transforming the physical artifact into a precursor for architectural actuality. Both models are framed by a landscape drawing of Leslie Gulch. In this drawing, symbols of the nomadic movement are projected onto the landscape, drawing attention to the convergence of human perception with the documentation of the natural environment. Through this interface, players experience the entanglement and emergence that arises from the stack of simulated ecology, hardware, and human action.
Despawn Effect
Through a dichotomic exploration of technological agency, Cloud Address Earth invites us to reconsider the relationship between technology and the environment and participate in a new cultural force that embraces ecological deep listening. Through speculative simulation, the project envisions the coalescence of ecological awareness and sensing technology as a means to build a resilient and interconnected planetary intelligence.