Grow Your Own Cloud (GYOC) reimagines the cloud by storing data nature’s way – in the DNA of plants. The initiative seeks to create a new type of cloud, one that is organic, rather than silicon, and which emits oxygen rather than CO2.

The installation is a contemporary Data Garden, featuring plants encoded with data and tools for the audience to experiment with decoding, to reveal hidden messages. This involves state of the art DNA data science, a technology which has the potential to store all of the world’s data in just 1 kg of DNA.

Working with nature to alleviate the threat of ‘data warming‘, GYOC invites visitors to experience a new materiality around data, and explore a world in which data is an accessible public resource that is shareable within communities.

The installation is a collaboration between the artists Cyrus Clarke (UK) and Monika Seyfried (PL) and scientist Jeff Nivala (US), supported by Unlisted Projects (US), The Museum of Human Achievement (US), Danish Arts in Austin, Roskilde Festival (DK), Catch (DK) and SXSW (US).

The produced work was supposed to be exhibited at SXSW in Austin (Texas), in Elsinore and at Roskilde Festival. Due to the current COVID-19 crisis the festivals were cancelled and the work will be exhibited at Catch from September 10 2020 – November 13 2020.

Due to the cancellation of the Festivals the artists have been working with Roskilde Festival and the Data Garden will showcase music from artists who were supposed to have played on the 2020 Festival that was cancelled. The musicians who will be featured in the installation are:

Blood Child (DK)
Ganger (DK)
Himmelrum (DK)
Meldes (DK)
Rigmor (DK)
Tuhaf (DK)

You will be able to listen in the following way:

Residency with Roskilde Festival and Unlisted Projects

The aim of the residency is to develop a public art work that is site-specific but at the same time can be exhibited in both Austin at SXSW, Roskilde Festival and Elsinore. Furthermore, the purpose of the residency is to facilitate connections between a Danish artist/artist group and Austin’s art scene and to further establish platforms for Danish art in the US.

The residency is supported by the Ministry of Culture, Denmark and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark.

About the institutions

Unlisted Projects:

Unlisted Projects (Austin) cultivates and facilitates interdisciplinary meeting points for visiting national/international artists amid a local landscape. We catalyze and nurture connections between visiting artists and the Austin arts ecosystem. Unlisted Projects’ visiting artists live and work along a thriving community of 35 in-house creatives and are supported to collaborate with the greater Austin art community. We foster a welcoming and intentional community of artists and arts administrators, as well as a number of useful tools and facilities at our resident artists’ disposal. Our building is equipped with a dark room, co-working space, 1000 sq ft gallery space, venue area with PA, vinyl record cutting lathe, VR headset, tool library and various audio/visual equipment. Both the gallery and the venue host monthly exhibitions, weekly performance events and occasional educational programming; artists in residence are encouraged to participate in the development of our programming activities. MoHA is located in a thriving neighborhood near multiple local restaurants, work-focused coffee shops and businesses, as well as a multitude of neighboring art/creative spaces, including Canopy, Big Medium, Tillery Park, and Bolm Studios. We welcome every medium imaginable and individuals whose work is outside the box. Residents will live on-site in a climate controlled renovated 1970s trailer with a private yard. Find past resident artists here

Roskilde Festival:

Roskilde Festival is a creative community that culminates one week each year. The first Roskilde Festival was held in 1971 and today 130,000 guests and over 200 different artists visit the festival that presents a progressive music, arts and activism program. We support a sustainable approach toward the cultural field and operate with a high awareness of socially engaged processes. Our engagement is local as much as global. Roskilde Festival is a non-profit organization. We donate 100% to humanitarian, non-profit cultural purposes. Read more here.