Strategic visibility: architectures of data colonialism in Las Vegas

Abstract

This article articulates the continuity between past and present infrastructural development in Las Vegas by focusing upon the materiality and visual cultural expression of the Google Henderson NV data center. The political implications and interstate dynamics at play in the development of this data center are historicized, focusing on large-scale tech and military projects that characterize the region’s development. Google’s promise that a data-driven future would be accompanied by social and economic benefits for the Las Vegas community lies in stark contrast to the reality of its data center’s function. The strategic adoption of Google’s vision by key local and state officials, alongside the data center’s material embodiment as visually abstract and camouflaged, allows the facility to avoid scrutiny and teaches us about the evolving position of labor in a post-Fordist economy, particularly with regard to housing and employment.

Keywords

data centers defense industry digital capitalism Google labor Las Vegas media infrastructure

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Aratani

(2020) Jobless America: The coronavirus unemployment crisis in figures, 28 May. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/may/28/jobless-america-unemployment-coronavirus-in-figures (accessed 19 August 2020).

Area Development News Desk (2019) Google builds data center hub in Henderson, Nevada, 8 July. Available at: https://www.areadevelopment.com/newsItems/7-8-2019/google-cloud-region-henderson-nevada.shtml (accessed 19 August 2020).

Bogel-Burroughs

Weise

(2020) How Tony Hsieh tried to single-handedly transform downtown Las Vegas. The New York Times, 28 November. Available at: https://www.nytimes.Com/2020/11/28/us/tony-hsieh-las-vegas.html (accessed 26 February 2022).

Branscombe

(2020) Google’s solar deal for Nevada data center would be largest of its kind. Available at: https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/google-alphabet/google-s-solar-deal-nevada-data-center-would-be-largest-its-kind (accessed 26 February 2023).

Ching

(1979) Architecture: Form, space and order. Internet Archive: 384–385.

Christophers

(2022) Rentier Capitalism: Who Owns the Economy, and Who Pays for It? New York, NY: Verso Books.

The City of Henderson, TC of H (2020) Our History | Henderson, NV. City of Henderson. Available at: https://www.cityofhenderson.com/government/departments/mayor-and-council/our-history#:~:text=Henderson%20was%20actually%20%22born%20in,of%20the%20Basic%20Magnesium%20Plant.&text=Governor%20Vail%20Pittman%20signed%20the,from%20becoming%20war%20surplus%20property (accessed 26 February 2023).

Couldry

Mejias

(2019) The Costs of Connection: How Data Is Colonizing Human Life and Appropriating It for Capitalism. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Dean

(2020) Tony Hsieh is gone, but his Las Vegas Vision is finding new life. Los Angeles Times, 12 December. Available at: https://www.latimes.Com/business/technology/story/2020-12-12/tony-hseih-change-vegas-legacy (accessed 3 July 2022).

10.

Fehner

Gosling

(2000) Origins of the Nevada test site (No. DOE/MA-0518). USDOE Office of Management and Administration (US).

11.

FOX5 Las Vegas (2019) Google’s Data Center is a Game Changer in Southern NV (video). Youtube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RL63wn1jRUs&t=4s (accessed 26 February 2022).

12.

Frohmberg

, et al. (2000). The assessment of radiation exposures in Native American communities from nuclear weapons testing in Nevada. Risk Analysis 20(1): 101–112.

13.

Goldstein

, et al. (2018) The epicenter of the housing bust is booming again (that’s a warning sign), 12 September. The New York Times. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/09/12/business/las-vegas-housing-crisis.html (accessed 3 July 2022).

14.

Google (2022) Henderson, Nevada – Data Centers. Google Data Centers. Available at: https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/locations/henderson/ (accessed 1 July 2022).

15.

Grega

(2019) Officials: $600M Google facility boosts Henderson’s presence in tech world. Available at: https://lasvegassun.com/news/2019/jul/01/officials-600m-google-facility-boosts-hendersons-p/ (accessed 16 August 2020).

16.

Holt

Vondereau

(2015) ‘Where the internet lives’: Data centers as cloud infrastructure. In: Parks

Starosielski

(eds) Signal Traffic: Critical Studies of Media Infrastructures. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.

17.

Jacobson

Hogan

(2019) Retrofitted data centres: A new world in the shell of the old. Work Organisation, Labour & Globalisation 13(2): 78–94.

18.

Johnson

(2019) Emplacing data within imperial histories: Imagining Iceland as data centers ‘natural’ home. Culture Machine 18, Special Issue, The Nature of Data Centers, 1–12.

19.

Johnson

(2018) ‘The most bombed nation on Earth’: Western Shoshone resistance to the Nevada National Security Site. Atlantic Journal of Communication 26(4): 224–239.

20.

Kavky

(2018) Surrealism, war and the art of camouflage. The Space Between, 14.

21.

Kucik

Leister

(2020) Analysis | The pandemic is exposing the vulnerabilities of the U.S. Service economy. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/04/22/pandemic-is-exposing-vulnerabilities-us-service-economy/ (accessed 8 August 2020).

22.

Levenda

Mahmoudi

(2019) Silicon forest and server farms: The (urban) nature of digital capitalism in the Pacific northwest. UMBC Geography and Environmental Systems Department Collection.

23.

Moehring

(2016) Resort City in the Sunbelt: Las Vegas, 1930–2000. Reno: University of Nevada Press.

24.

Moehring

Green

(2005) Las Vegas: A Centennial History. Reno: University of Nevada Press.

25.

Moss

Alley

(2020) Google plans $1.2bn Nevada data center expansion in Henderson and Tahoe Reno. Data Center Dynamics, 17 September. Available at: https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/google-plans-600m-nevada-data-center-expansion-gets-25m-tax-break/ (accessed 26 February 2023).

26.

Neate

(2020) $1tn is just the start: Why tech giants could double their market valuations. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jan/18/1-trillion-dollars-just-the-start-alphabet-google-tech-giants-double-market-valuation (accessed 19 August 2020).

27.

Nevada Governor’s Office of Economic Development. 2019. Design, LLC Board Packet, 1–20. Available at: https://www.diversifynevada.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/5-C.-Design-LLC-Board-Packet.pdf (accessed 19 August 2020).

28.

Parks

Starosielski

(eds) (2015) Signal Traffic: Critical Studies of Media Infrastructures. Champaign: University of Illinois Press.

29.

Plantin

Punathambekar

(2019) Digital media infrastructures: Pipes, platforms, and politics. Media, Culture & Society 41(2): 163–174.

30.

Pratt

(2012) What happens in Brooklyn moves to Vegas. The New York Times, 19 October. Available at: https://www.nytimes.Com/2012/10/21/magazine/what-happens-in-brooklyn-moves-to-vegas.html (accessed 26 February 2023).

31.

Reeves

Welch

Van Drie

(2021) ‘You Never Know’: Work and Precarity in Las Vegas Before and During COVID-19. Brookings Mountain West: University of Nevada Press.

32.

Rothman

(2003) Neon Metropolis: How Las Vegas Started the Twenty-First Century. London: Routledge.

33.

Rothman

Davis

(eds) (2002) The Grit beneath the Glitter: Tales from the Real Las Vegas. Berkeley: University of California Press.

34.

Sadowski

(2020) The internet of landlords: Digital platforms and new mechanisms of rentier capitalism. Antipode 52(2): 562–580.

35.

Schoenmann

(2010) How Zappos’ Move to Downtown Las Vegas Was Sealed: Las Vegas Sun Newspaper, 6 December. Available at: https://lasvegassun.com/news/2010/dec/06/how-zappos-move-was-sealed/ (accessed 26 February 2023).

36.

Schulz

(2018) Google building $600M data center in Henderson. Available at: https://www.reviewjournal.com/business/google-building-600m-data-center-in-henderson-1528054/ (accessed 19 August 2020).

37.

Segall

(2019) Google holds ceremonial groundbreaking for Henderson data center, 2 July. Available at: https://www.reviewjournal.com/business/google-holds-ceremonial-groundbreaking-for-henderson-data-center-1699324/ (accessed 19 August 2020).

38.

Srnicek

(2017) Platform Capitalism. Hoboken, NY: John Wiley & Sons.

39.

Taylor

ARE

(2021) Future-proof: Bunkered data centres and the selling of ultra-secure cloud storage. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 27(S1): 76–94.

40.

Timpano

(2019) Guide to the Henderson Public Library Photograph Collection on Henderson, Nevada, 28 August. UNLV Special Collection and Archives. Available at: https://www.library.unlv.edu/speccol/finding-aids/PH-00254.pdf (accessed 19 August 2020).

41.

Veel

(2003). The irreducibility of space: Labyrinths, cities, cyberspace. Diacritics 33(3/4): 151–172.

42.

Velkova

(2019) Data centres as impermanent infrastructures. Culture Machine 18.

43.

Western Newspaper Union (1917–1918) Camouflage – Ships – Model of S.S. Olympia Dazzle painted. Made by Lieut. Moser for presentation to Lord Pirrie, shipping controller. This dazzle painting was put on ships to make them hard to see and aim at and it saved many a ship during the war. National Archives at College Park. Available at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Camouflage_-_Ships_-_Model_of_S.S._Olympia_Dazzle_painted._Made_by_Lieut._Moser_for_presentation_to_Lord_Pirrie,_shipping_controller._This_dazzle_painting_was_put_on_ships_to_make_them_hard_to_see_and_aim_at_and_(.%20.%20.)_-_NARA_-_20809050.jpg (accessed 2 July 2022).

44.

Whitaker

(2022) Google announces plans to invest over $30 million in Nevada this year. Nevada Business Magazine, 25 April. Available at: https://www.nevadabusiness.com/2022/04/google-announces-plans-to-invest-over-30-million-in-nevada-this-year/ (accessed 3 July 2022).