Je komplexer, desto hä

The Cloud of Unknowing

In 1999, David Bowie told the BBC: "I don't think we have even seen the tip of the iceberg. The potential of what the internet is going to do to society — both good and bad — is unimaginable." The interviewer objected: "It's just a tool though, isn't it?" Bowie: "No, it's not. It's an alien lifeform."

The internet has stayed about that approachable. Words like "understanding" or "control" sound almost anachronistic while the tech giants extend their cloud capacity. James Bridle writes in the preface to New Dark Age: "The ability to think without claiming, or even seeking, to fully understand is key to survival in a new dark age because, as we shall see, it is often impossible to understand." The advantage goes to those who no longer expect to understand. That is sobering.

Something has fogged up between us and the digital world. The promise of "personal computing" has quietly decayed into unknown computing — while control over one's own tools is a precondition for an open and free society. This animation asks whether the fog can lift again: can technology become simple and verifiable enough to be a natural tool for everyone?

Cloud

"Cloud" used to be weather. Over the past decades it also became a place — an undefined, technical elsewhere. Whatever is too complex to explain gets folded into the symbol of the cloud: out of sight, out of mind. The cloud suggests simplicity and transparency, and can by definition deliver neither. As a metaphor, it is a capitulation to technical complexity.

It is also a bad metaphor. Nothing about the cloud is weightless or amorphous: it is physical infrastructure — world-spanning cables and giant halls full of computers, under specific jurisdictions, consuming enormous amounts of energy, operated by the most valuable companies in the world. The digital lives of billions — communication, finances, medical records, wishes, preferences, votes — sit behind the picture of a fluffy little cloud. Bridle again: "The cloud is a power relationship, and most people are not on top of it."

About the title

The Cloud of Unknowing is a text written in the 14th century by an unknown monk. It argues that God is best experienced once you stop questioning and accept your unknowing — between man and the divine hangs the cloud of unknowing, and accepting it is what makes the experience possible. The parallel is hard to miss: tech companies guard their secrets inside the cloud and have an interest in unquestioned faith in their products. Scrutiny — by users or by regulators — is not welcome.

There is also a Tocotronic song with the same title. It describes an uprising and, at the same time, the resignation before the feeling of not knowing. In Tocotronic's usual ambiguity, it can also be heard as a love song, in which two people only find each other through the ever-present cloud of unknowing.

The need for verifiability

3D animation can show events that otherwise stay invisible. Here, the electricity that flows through a chip becomes light: you can watch the simulated chip work, and anyone who can count in binary can read and decode the data stored on it. Decoded, the signals spell out the principles of the hacker ethic — openness and freedom in technology.

At the same time, the animation stages the very problem it is about. The data lies open before your eyes, but only actually decoding it gives certainty; until then, it is a claim. Even at this seemingly absolute transparency there is a gap between the data and yourself — and that gap is what motivated this project.

Whoever wants to find their way in a networked, digitized world has to accept that not everything can be understood. But without the wish to understand anyway, you become a plaything of the systems. Or, as Tocotronic put it: "Die Wolke der Unwissenheit wird für immer bei uns sein."

This text is a shortened excerpt from "Je komplexer, desto hä" (German, PDF).

Thanks

Thanks to Rainer Wölzl for years of joyful support, Michael Troll for generous help with the sound design, Brent Patterson for sharing his knowledge of cloud shaders, Ian Hubert for the best tutorials, and the whole Blender community.