My umbrella topic in my research is tactical interfaces and a sub-topic in my research is critical infrastructures. In 2015 Nicole Stravetsky published a book called Undersea Networks in the MIT Press. She shows and visualized the physicality part of the internet cables and the geopolitics and the control of. Also Wendy Chun and also Gitlovic in Dark Fiber deal with the topic of how surveillance data caption and other structures and mechanisms of control were managed by corporations and so on. But it was in 2017 when Tatiana Bacicelli, in the framework of Disruption Lab, set a series of conferences with the topic of deep cables. with the topic of deep cables. She came to Lynch in the framework of the festival AMRO, Art Meet Radical Networks, hosted by Cervus, to make a talk. I have the luck of being there. And during her talk, I had an idea. I catch her. Thanks to Tatiana. I talk with her, I explain my idea, that was to build up a device to cut undersea cables. See like this terrorist approach and two years after that I found the way, I got the funding to launch a set of workshops in the National University in Colombia working with the Department of Industrial Design to set of industrial design to set internet dissident workshop. And I was working with them to build a machine to destroy internet. They were super happy and super motivated because the assignments were something normally constructive, building or solving problems, and they like this approach of destroying. So after this workshop, the project FACID, Free Universal CAD Kit for Internet Dissidents, was created. It's basically an autonomous machine able to cut and their C cables. The file STL for 3D printing is available in my website and you can print it and destroy internet by your own. and destroy internet by Rome. This project is set in the Finnish exhibition. And few months ago, when we were talking about, it came to my mind that I also saw a news in internet that China was developing a machine, and China patent a machine to cut undersea cables. It was a kind of ankle pulled by a cargo ship that going through the deep sea and cutting everything, but destroying at the same time the reefs and not really being precise in what cutting I was thinking, wow, my machine is much more efficient and precise. So talking with Manuela, how to set the exhibition, also came the idea of creating a diagram and talking, we came with the idea of building a map where it's showing not the internet cables which are already there, which are documented, highly well documented in some website, but the cable who has been cut for different reasons. So after deep research, on helppo löytää sen erilaisille sekresioille. Ja myös......puhun sisään joitain akadeemisia prosedureja. Tulin 10-20 tilanteesta, joissa maailmassa internet-kivit ovat loppuneet. around 10, 20 situations where around the world, some internet cable has been cut. And with the map, the fall of the fiber optic control power and paranoia, which maps and shows the documented cuts made by internet and the sick cables. Just to explain it a little bit, ja dokumentoidaan internetin ja sivukavereiden tekemistä. Hieman kertomuksia. Yksin vain muutama klusteri. Yksi on Valko-Sivulla. Se on perustettu sivuun, Ranskassa ja Ukrainassa. Toinen on Pasiikon puolella, Chiniin ja Taiwanin välillä. Ja mediterraaninen, koska tilanne on niin, että kääntöjä on käynnissä ja he ovat konflikissa. Oli myös mielenkiintoista, että Pirat yritti saada, ajattelut, että cyberoptiikkakavereita on koperiä, contain copper and sharks is the reason that also companies creating cables reinforced the cables. I think that's everything I wanted to explain. And you have invited Mario Santamaria, also an artist. Thank you. I can understand this map as a complement with your machine, no? Because I don't know if you have to do this project first, I don't know if maybe you get different decisions. Because okay, we can find the moments of when internet breaks, but it's really material. It's only the cables, it's only fiber optic cables, no telegraph cables, it's not genealogy, you don't make a research in more time, it's like right now. And also you mix natural accidents or the sharks with political conflicts altogether. My comment about what I see in this map is like, because of course a lot of things, different things together, but the information is hyper specific atlas, hyper specific map. It's like, it's again as a cat, because you have a lot of information and you make like a line It's not for orientation. It's not for get lost. It's only I don't know for what no you maybe you have to explain For what is this map? But I imagine like You know, yes, we imagine this as a planetarium fabric Imagine this as a planetarium fabric. And where are the breaks in this planetarium fabric? Breaks are in the long distance, in the middle of the sea where nobody's watching. But it's true, the political conflicts are in other kinds of places, because the Baltic Sea, or the North Sea, is not a hidden place in the world. Maybe the first question is for what this map? Is it orientation? Is it to get lost? For what is it? As you see, or as you say, it's a complement to the previous hard work. And the intention of this speculative design, it was not destroy internet for sure, but to pump up questions. Questions about who is owning internet, how is the physicality, which companies are behind, what are the intentions of them, why NSA has the control of it, where are the nodes where internet because at the beginning Alpanet was considered as a centralized network proof of bomb but now you see or you follow all the structure of the cables and you see that there are control places where it can be survived, it can be used for other reasons. For what? For what? Okay, this is a mandatory question about representation because, of course, we have ATLAS here, but it's in relation with a machine. It's a more complex operation, the machine to cut the cables. Every representation is fake, every map is fake because you have to find some kind of information and represent this information and I can see of course the representation of the shark and the pirates is, you know, we can see humor in these drawings. But where are the lies in this representation? What is your own fakes? Okay, okay. It's a nice question. It's a nice question. It's a nice question because creating a map is a process of knowledge revelation, but it's at the same time a creative process. So when you are creating a map, you are also putting the intention that you want, you modify, you are able to modify what the other people is also observing, no? So when we see a map, we have to question ourselves, who developed this map? What was the intention of developing this map? For sure, the intention of this map is, first, is an artistic intention, and I think the lies could come from the news that I wrote, the secrecy behind because most of these cuts has been, the information is not public. I couldn't find a resource when they said, I have this cut here, here this cable in this kilometer, in this location. So yeah, there is light and secrecy. But there is also an honest exercise of make the audience think about what is the problematic behind. I'm sure you know, 90th century, the militaries, they have map makers departments. Militaries go to the war area and do all the landscape. This is how they create information about the positions in the war. And map makers department disappear with the technification of different kind of systems. But it's powerful image of a body drawing in a distance with the object. Where is the body in this map? Where is your body? No, no, because it's also when we work about data. Also is how we embody the elements. What is the position of the representation? And this, OK, is very complex, deep question. But I, I, I say it's not a paranoid. I think your body is knowing the paranoid position Yeah, I don't know what is my body about probably the next project the next project is taking my Sweet for swimming and going to to the seaside and try to prove their work. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mario. Thank you, Mario. We include into this discussion now Julia. I'm sure Julia has a lot to say. I think I might have another data point for you. Because yesterday in our conversation about dual-use technologies, Kambale Musawuli, he's a researcher from Congo, and he asked the audience, has someone of you ever experienced a two-week internet outage? And last March 2024 on the African west coast, an undersea cable was cut and the media reports said it was due to seismic activity, which I'd be curious to hear your take on this, whether this is realistic or not. The other reports or rumors were that it was the Houthi militia or the Russians, but Kambale had a way more interesting theory. Because as soon as the internet was down, and in Ghana it was for two weeks, other countries like Liberia, Ivory Coast were affected for much longer. And as soon as the internet went down, all of a sudden Starlink was there and was like, hey, Starlink, like the Elon Musk satellite internet provider, was there and was like, hey, you can buy internet access from us, right? Like, here's the plans. They rolled out a massive PR campaign and many people signed up to Starlink. So Kambale was like, I mean, for me this is clear. Starlink cut this fucking internet cable. So I'd be curious to hear your take on this. Yeah. And it's a really interesting point. Yeah, it's about the fragility of the physical infrastructure, and how words can be designed, what is the internet connection or not. And for sure Elon Musk knew about that, and he wanted to go out of the planet and create this Starlink network of satellite to create a safe or to provide always internet in eight areas in disasters where a hurricane broke all the internet connections and came like a hero. But behind the scenes, what he is also building is a monopoly where he is extracting every kind of information that he can extract from it. So it's another kind of colonialism, especially in Africa, which is also managed by different cables, especially from Meta and Google, which is also a way of colonializing the activity and behavior of users, which are not completely inside to the internet but is an open door to an extractivist process for sure. Would also be interesting to add like an infrastructure, not cruise, cruises are evil, right, but an expedition where you travel to all the sites where the cables have been cut. I mean it could also be quite interesting to go to the places where the cables come out of the sea, right? Because it's such a... it's visible and you... I don't know if you can touch it, but it's there, right? But all we know about it are abstract maps most of the time. Yeah, it's a very interesting project. Thank you. Thank you. Really nice project. I was wondering if you think also to make a bridge with traditional art or an art translation. I know that you have the machine at the exhibition, but I remember some project that do a critic of something, but materialize it in a way. For sure, I would write a documentary. It would be very nice also to go to the places and to make speculative narrations and you have more resources to talk about this as an episteme again how to how to how to get people know all this happened but i i have only two or three examples there was a piece i saw years ago of jonah brooke herr cohen that he was doing a criticism to the museum and they have a taladro, how to say it? Drilling machine. A drilling machine in the wall of the museum and it drilled each time some visitors entered the website, the museum website. So it's very critical but it has few more but at the same time there is the classical Google, or Julian Oliver's work. And imagine if you have, in a way, a representation of that cable and people do something in the space could make a kind of analogy or allegory of what's going on at the same time. So they are getting the knowledge, but they are doing something that actually activates the space and teaches them that what they are so they are getting the knowledge but they are doing something that actually activate the space and and teach them that what they are doing you know do that if you have some ideas and develop any kind another kind of materiality of the project yeah i get it as extending the project yeah there is all artists like treble Pluggin who dive to the sea to take pictures of NSA cables in California or Mario Santamaria, which is a really well-known artist for the internet tour, which is making a tour as a tourist tour to get all the audience in a bus and going to the points where internet is. It's also a way of visualizing the infrastructure to make the people know that internet, which is around, is also something tangible and is something that is also controlled. And you can make your own selfie on a data center, you know. So the project is founded.