trace zine

listen quickly

getting started

listen slowly

ask where the

sounds are from?

1) Put on your headphones!

2) Touch & hold the copper circle at the bottom of the globe. (This completes the circuit - don’t let go!)

3) Touch & hold a wire to hear a soundscape. (The points and routes are taken from real locations in technology supply chains. The soundscapes are too!)

what do they contain?

who are they missing?

how to listen

...a few prompts

2) Try listening slowly – to a single recording (each are roughly 1 - 2 minutes)

How does that affect how you process them?

1) Try switching sounds quickly – stopping no more than a second or two between switching.

How does that affect how you process the sounds?

How are supply chains similarly encourage speed?

3) As you listen to the sounds – ask yourself, where are they from? Who might be involved in that step in the technology supply chain?

scroll down to learn more in this interactive zine

about the installation

‘trace’ explores the complexity of global supply chains through maps: a tactile, auditory experience.

Using a standing globe with wires, ‘trace’ trigger sounds when touched from different steps in supply chains: from mining to manufacturing, to shipping, waste, and recycling.

scroll down to learn more in this interactive zine

For many of us, technology supply chains are characterised by their seamlessness and abstraction.

They are usually presented to us as something like this:

processing

raw materials

manufacturing

retailer

consumer devices

electric cars

batteries

data centers

we like to think that the cycle continues…

recycling

e-waste

but usually the cycle ends here.

scroll down to learn more about the supply chain

supply chains might seem linear, but they are more complicated than that.

Everything we know has been extracted from the earth.

Materials need to be purified. They have to be turned into something we can use.

Materials are made into stuff. That stuff is turned into more stuff, stitched together into what we think of as a product.

90% of all traded goods are transported by sea

When things move from place to place, they add to a chain of processes that span the globe.

We think it ends here, but it doesn't. The "end" has supply chains of its own, from software to everything that creates our digital lives.

The materials we use are used again, and again, and again.

Finally, it all returns to the earth. But it is litter, and will lie there forever. How long will it last?