This presentation analyzes the case of Tuvalu and its plans to become a fully virtual and digitized nation. Amid the unraveling of worlds, the possibility of Tuvalu’s digital twin opens questions on how to address the fragility of environments and communities, their care, custodianship, preservation, and eventual loss in the face of the climate catastrophe. Otero will delve into the inherent tension between digital custodianship and the unsustainable practices of the data storage industry and explore notions of preservation, proliferation, and decay. The lecture will be accompanied by a spatial installation designed by Otero, together with Daniel Miller, Paula Vilaplana, Carmen Chan, and the students from the Data Mourning Clinic at Columbia GSAPP.

“When Pixels Wash Ashore” is presented as part of e-flux Architecture Lectures, a monthly series inviting researchers and practitioners to discuss timely issues in contemporary architecture, theory, culture, and technology.

Dr. Marina Otero Verzier is Dean’s Visiting Assistant Professor at GSAPP, Columbia University, where she leads the Data Mourning clinic, exploring the intersection between digital infrastructures and climate catastrophe. A 2022 Harvard Wheelwright Prize winner, she collaborates with scientific institutions such as the DIPC Supercomputing Center on developing prototypes like Computational Compost. She contributed to Chile’s first National Data Centers Plan alongside “Resistencia SocioAmbiental — Quilicura” and other local communities on the front lines of extractivism. Otero authored En las Profundidades de la Nube (2024), proposing new paradigms and aesthetics for data storage, integrating architecture, preservation, and digital culture. Previously, she headed the MA Social Design at Design Academy Eindhoven (2020-2023) and directed research at Het Nieuwe Instituut (2015-2022). Her curatorial work includes Wet Dreams (2024), Compulsive Desires (2023), and Work, Body, Leisure, the Dutch Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale. She has co-edited Automated Landscapes (2023), Lithium: States of Exhaustion (2021), More-than-Human (2020), Architecture of Appropriation (2019), and After Belonging (2016), among others.

For more information, contact program [​at​] e-flux.com.

Accessibility

• Two flights of stairs lead up to the building’s front entrance at 172 Classon Avenue.​
• For elevator access, RSVP to program [​at​] e-flux.com. The building has a freight elevator that leads into the e-flux office space. The entrance to the elevator is nearest to 180 Classon Ave (a garage door). We have a ramp for the steps within the space.
• e-flux has an ADA-compliant bathroom. There are no steps between the event space and this bathroom.

Time: 7:00 pm EST

Free!

Registration