Big Data and Cloud Culture - To the Cloud: Big Data in a Turbulent World - page 208

the physical presence of the data center as a blot on the landscape and
an energy hog. Admittedly, there are dark clouds that can cause damage
and we often wish the clouds would disperse to reveal the cherished blue
sky. But we also know that these are all natural processes, part of the
eternal cycle of nature, whose extension to the cloud makes computing
appear natural as well. It is rare for clouds to inspire signiicant reproba-
tion. Rather, there is a Cloud Appreciation Society, and, for those who
prefer clouds to birds, a Cloud Collectors Handbook that enables people
to chart and chronicle the varieties of clouds they have observed. Clouds
are embraced by romantic poets like Shelley and Wordsworth for giving
life, for contributing to nature's rhythmic cycles, and for pointing the way
to the sublime visions that serve up a lifetime of rewards. What's not to
like about the cloud?
There is more to the metaphor of the cloud than capturing the sublimity
of cloud computing. In its rich history, the metaphor contains a critique
that challenges utopian visions inding transcendence, if not the divine,
in new technology. Considering its ubiquitous presence and persistence
throughout time, it is no surprise to ind the cloud in many expressions
of the human imagination. The written word, music, and the visual arts
would be much poorer without the metaphorical cloud. From the broad
sweep of the cloud in culture, I have chosen three exemplars from vastly
different periods in Western society to document antimonies between the
metaphor and the information technology that would adopt it. It begins
with The Clouds , a comedy written by Aristophanes that satirized intel-
lectual life in ifth-century BC Greece. Next, we move to the fourteenth
century AD and The Cloud of Unknowing , a spiritual guide to life written
by an older monk to provide advice to a young man who has recently joined
the monastery. Finally, I take up David Mitchell's masterful contemporary
novel Cloud Atlas , which tells six interconnected stories that span human
history across the world.
There are many other examples from the cultural history of the cloud
that could have served as well. Clouds ill the natural and mythic imagery
of Homer's Iliad , suggesting the duality of nature's pastoral beauty and
the gods' interest in the dark clouds of war. Giotto's thirteenth-century
fresco in the Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi contains a devil hidden in
the clouds, depicting the scene on earth and in heaven at the time of the
saint's death. For the great artist, even a setting of celestial majesty includes