Tung-hui Hu Books

We may imagine the digital cloud as placeless, mute, ethereal, and unmediated. Yet the reality of the cloud is embodied in thousands of massive data centers, any one of which can use as much electricity as a midsized town. Even all these data centers are only one small part of the cloud. Behind that cloud-shaped icon on our screens is a whole universe of technologies and cultural norms, all working to keep us from noticing their existence. In this book, Tung-Hui Hu examines the gap between the real and the virtual in our understanding of the cloud.Hu shows that the cloud grew out of such older networks as railroad tracks, sewer lines, and television circuits. He describes key moments in the prehistory of the cloud, from the game "Spacewar" as exemplar of time-sharing computers to Cold War bunkers that were later reused as data centers. Countering the popular perception of a new "cloudlike" political power that is dispersed and immaterial, Hu argues that the cloud grafts digital technologies onto older ways of exerting power over a population. But because we invest the cloud with cultural fantasies about security and participation, we fail to recognize its militarized origins and ideology. Moving between the materiality of the technology itself and its cultural rhetoric, Hu's account offers a set of new tools for rethinking the contemporary digital environment.

"Perplexity and wonder are integral parts of Tung-Hui Hu's poetry, which is as elegant as it is surprising."—Rain Taxi "This fresh and unexpected poet extends the lyric into the social space without losing any of song's intensity or mystery."—Mark Doty "Tung-Hui Hu works magic on the page."—Linda Gregerson Weaving between the personal and cosmic I, Tung-Hui Hu's lyrics seek the "greenhouse"—a place of saturation, growth—as a poetic space to cultivate new modes through which our common language can once again illuminate and guide—"lighthouse." With minimalism and control, Greenhouses, Lighthouses draws subtly from photography, cinematography, and history to create haunting and memorable connections. from "Cosmos Revealed behind a Dense Curtain of Poppies": Greenhouses, Lighthouses. The first astronomers tended on hands and knees the soil of the universe, smoothing away moss, seeding by night. Now our galaxy has the sixfold symmetry of ornament on the tower of Alhambra, shoots curled from stem looping heaven and earth together. Trace curlicues and rosettes with your finger. The chamber sealed off to mortals but open above, like a poppy. Tung-Hui Hu, author of three books of poetry, earned his MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan and a PhD in film from University of California Berkeley. He teaches at the University of Michigan and lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.