DATA CENTER NOISE is the first in a series of work by the transatlantic arts project GULFF. It explores the auditory byproducts of the AI era.

This multimedia installation comprising an interactive computer station, headphones, and a domestic built environment, invites participants to step into a suburban home office and select from 11 instances of community-sourced audio recordings of the noise pollution emitted by data centers 24 hours a day. This audio, converted into a series of perpetual loops and embedded into video files that collage related news reports, social media footage, corporate logos and data related to each facility—such as ownership, size, volume and distance from nearby residences—overpowers all other sources of noise on screen: conversation, traffic, birdsong.

Presented in the center of affluent Manhattan—a net recipient of data center power—DATA CENTER NOISE recontextualizes the sounds that rural and suburban communities endure in order to facilitate unfettered technological progress.

Participants may also select, from the audio options “the rumo(u)r,” a new piece of original music and accompanying video by GULFF which is built upon these same community-sourced recordings and news reports.

On the desk alongside the computer, a notepad of handwritten journal entries—synthesized from online forum discussions, social media and news commentary—mirrors the evidence communities are required to gather to facilitate their legal action against these facilities. Participants are invited to leave their own thoughts in the blank pages that follow these entries.

May 12 2026 // PRESS RELEASE // Data Center Listening Party
May 8 2026 // AI Week NYC Event Listing