Grow Your Own Cloud (GYOC) seeks to create new types of data infrastructure; typologies which render data open and available to everyone, create new opportunities for green space, indoors and out, while subverting notions of the privatised digital information economy. Through initiating these sites of investigation, GYOC researches new scientific methods for working with biological data storage, a crucial emerging technology to help thwart the data industry’s exacerbation of the ongoing climate crisis.
GYOC has been the recipient of various international awards including the UN Summer of Solutions 2019, Prix BloxHUB 2019, Interaction Awards 20202, and Core77 Awards 2019. They have addressed audiences at the United Nations during the World Youth Climate Summit 2019, COP25, and various events at Davos 2020.
The core team of the project are the initiators Cyrus Clarke (UK) and Monika Seyfried (PL) designers and artists working at the intersection of science, technology and the arts. Collaborators include Jeff Nivala, Principle Investigator at the Molecular Information Systems Lab, University of Washington, Annelie Berner, Principle Investigator at CIID Research and abNormal Studios.