New Article in Urban Studies by Carr and Madron

New article: Carr & Karinne Madron "Post-political clouds: Suspended failure in Google's data centre development". In Burcu Baykurt & Antoine Courmont's (eds) Special Issue on "Google, a major stakeholder in local governance?" Urban Studies

Abstract:  Digital corporations and governments alike are driving a post-political agenda around the expansion of data centres – the infrastructural backbone of expanding cyberworlds. With qualitative methods, the political socioeconomic context of a Google data centre project in Luxembourg was reconstructed. It is seen that the project resulted from both the country’s pursuit of a niche within global economic flows and Google’s international agenda to secure its business position. An eight-year narrative materialised with local dissent on one side, and the refusal of big business and big politics to disclose information to the public on the other. We argue that the ‘suspended failure’ of the project benefitted Google, disrupted local politics, tested the limits of local spatial planning practices, left communities in a state of uncertainty and ensured post-political urban governance throughout.

Permanent link here: https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980251355132

We will work on getting Open Access. 

The sounds of infrastructure in Luxembourg

Photo by Carr, 2025

 

This year at the Venice Architecture Biennale, the Luxembourg Pavilion presents an immersive sound installation titled "Sonic Investigations" (May–November 2025), created and curated by Valentin Bansac, Mike Fritsch, and Alice Loumeau with Ludwig Berger and Peter Szendy. The pavilion invites visitors into a sensory experience centred solely on the architecture of soundscapes across the Duchy.

Earlier this year, Carr had the joy of joining the team as they recorded a range of sounds at LuxConnect—a high-tech, secure data center in Luxembourg—capturing the super fascinating acoustic signatures of digital infrastructure.

A vinyl edition of the work, composed by Ludwig Berger and titled Ecotonalities: No Other Home Than the In-Between, will be released soon, including (but not limited to!) recordings from the data center. Additionally, a companion book Bansac, Fritsch, Loumeau, Szendy, Ecotones: Investigating Sounds and Territories, has been published by Spector Books.

And finally, look for their event on Saturday September 13 called, "Listening Along the Edge" at this year's Luxembourg Urban Garden (LUGA) festival in LuxCity.