Many collaborators actively contribute to the CSC, and we’d like to introduce you to some of their work. Meet Imogen Clendinning.

Imogen is pursuing a PhD in Art and Visual Culture at Western University, focusing on DIY digital archives and environmentally sustainable networks. Imogen has worked with the CSC on several projects including Objects as Temporal Entities where they designed and programmed the project’s solar-powered archival website: Archivetemporal.

Imogen leans against the root of a building made of ice. The rooftop is covered in blue tarp.
Imogen installing solar panels atop of a make-shift building that houses a digital mini archive of documentation from past Ice Follies events on the frozen Lake Nipissing. Ice Follies, 2023. Image courtesy of Imogen Clendinning.

Can you introduce us to your overall research/focus?

In my research, I design digital archives for arts communities and small-scale projects that prioritize environmental sustainability. I employ a DIY and solar-punk ethos, programming Raspberry Pi microcomputers to act as web servers that hold archived data and power these small computers with solar energy.

My research is informed by growing concerns that the Internet technologies used by museums and cultural heritage organizations to house their online archives have detrimental impacts on the environment. Mainstream models of digital archiving potentially feed into unsustainable archiving strategies through the purchasing of the newest technology for storing data, which inevitably produces a large amount of e-waste and the massive amounts of fossil fuel energy that is often necessary to power the cloud-based data storage infrastructures that hold museum’s digital archives.

As I pursue my PhD, I work to develop new hands-on strategies that can be adopted by artists and grassroots communities who are interested in building their own low-emission Internet infrastructures. In 2023 I was pleased to work with the Centre for Sustainable Curating and Synthetic Collective to create Archivetemporal, a solar-powered digital archive to hold archival material from the Objects as Temporal Entities project, and in 2023 I created a digital archive for the Ice Follies biannual festival in Nbissing Region. In 2022 I was grateful to share my solar archive model through a workshop at InterAccess in Tkaronto, and I am always looking for more opportunities to share my solar digital archive work with more folks!

Why is it important to focus on sustainable networks and new ways of considering digital archives?

Before my PhD studies, I worked in arts administration at Artcite Inc. in Windsor, ON and was a practicing video artist. During the COVID-19 lockdown, I found that our organization and many others were presenting thoughtful and reflective digital programming due in part to necessary health mandates across Canada that required galleries to shut their doors. I recognized a surge of digital art being produced with the support of ARCs, but in some cases, these not-for-profits did not have pre-existing digital archives to support their long-term preservation, or they did not have the financial resources to build new digital archive systems.[1]

When I began my PhD studies, I was interested in designing new digital archive strategies tailored to artist-run centres; digital archives that are created for smaller scales and are reflective of the interests of ad hoc groups and artist communities. Increasingly, museums and galleries in Canada are being called on to lessen the environmental impacts of their operations, and these conversations extend to the digital footprint of museum work. My PhD research drew me to the fields of environmental media and critical infrastructure studies, and I began to dream of a digital archive that did not rely on cloud storage and was powered by renewable energy. Such an archive could be a useful alternative for arts groups that are committed to lessening the environmental impacts of their digital presence.

The make-shift building that houses digital mini archive of documentation from past Ice Follies events on the frozen Lake Nipissing.
Archive on Ice, Imogen Clendinning, 2023. Part of Ice Follies, a biannual site-specific arts festival that has taken place on the frozen ice of Lake Nipissing since 2001. Image courtesy of Imogen Clendinning.

Can you tell us about a specific project and share a bit more about your work?

I always love to reference the Archive on Ice project, as this was my first digital archive. It involved many pitfalls and successes, and I had the opportunity to speak with my community about the archiving of our shared history and the environmental impacts of Internet infrastructure. The Archive on Ice was a solar-powered digital archive that held digital archive material from the history of Ice Follies, a biannual site-specific arts festival that has taken place on the frozen ice of Lake Nipissing since 2001.

In 2023 I had created a blueprint for a possible solar-powered web server, coded in simple HTML, that would hold low-data versions of archival documentation and writing. I pitched this concept as a research-creation project to Sharon Switzer and Alexander Rondeau at the Near North Mobile Media Lab in North Bay, ON, who helped facilitate the project, giving me access to Ice Follies’ history, including images, programs and exhibition statements.

For this project there were many considerations, most especially because I wanted to install the solar archive on the frozen ice, alongside other installations in the festival. Due to this, I was very conscious of how weather and climate might affect the outcome of my work. I was worried that the solar panels could be blanketed in snow, or that my lithium battery might freeze in the cold. As I was installing the server in an ice shack, a leak in the roof created a steady drip of water directly beside the solar archive’s fragile microcomputer. Throughout the process of creating the Archive on Ice, I became very aware that there was a cooperative dynamic playing out between myself, the DIY amateur digital archivist, the computer and solar technology I was working with, and the weather and land. Luckily for me, the weather and the lake were generous collaborators, and the panels collected ample sunlight and powered the microcomputer for the entire course of the festival.

Can you share a bit about the projects you’ve worked on with the CSC?

Last year I collaborated with Dr. Kirsty Robertson and many other welcoming contributors from the Centre for Sustainable Curating and the Synthetic Collective on the multifaceted Objects as Temporal Entities project. Composed of a series of essays, guides, art objects, and the solar-powered archive, this body of work explores the storage and inevitable breakdown of materials in museum collections. As my own research is quite critical of the long-term sustainability of museums’ digital archiving systems, I felt especially passionate about my role in developing the solar archive.

The Archivetemporal, which went live in August of 2024, is my first long-term solar-powered archive project. The site is currently live between 12-4pm Monday to Friday, and this limited timeframe is in place to account for shorter days or cloudy weather in London ON, where the site is hosted from my apartment window. As this is the first solar archive that I have hosted for more than a month, it has been an interesting experience testing the longevity of the technology, and how it responds to different weather conditions. I have learned in this process to place more trust in the sun to provide energy for our website, and to accept that the site will not always be online. Due to this, the Archivetemporal also inherently challenges a presumptive impression that many web users have, that digital information must always be available.  I hope visitors to the site reflect on the site’s limited hours and adopt a slower approach in their relationship with digital technology.

Solar panels inside of an apartment window.
Solar panels powering the Archivetemporal website. Image courtesy of Imogen Clendinning.

We’d love to share more about working with solar-powered websites with others! What advice do you give artists wanting to do the same?

My work making solar-powered websites has been so generative in many ways, I’ve learned practical skills in coding and programming, and new conceptual approaches to my relationship with the Internet and digital technology. Making solar sites has informed my thinking about the material impacts of digital technologies, like how silicon sand, precious metals and extractive mining practices are required to fabricate the digital networks we rely on, or how our data flows through fibre optic cables installed across the ocean floor, and most notably the many ways that solar power relies on planetary forces, the weather and the land. I think that solar can be a useful strategy for artists and creatives who are interested in foregrounding these material impacts of technology, as many conventional Internet technologies like cloud storage and AI obscure their extractive relationship to the environment. Through solar, although these technologies are not without their flaws and environmental impacts, as the PV panel collects light the necessary contribution of the sun in powering a site is made visible.

My advice to artists who would like to build their own solar site begins with, broadly, finding a community either online or in person who can advise you on technical questions along the way. Hiccups will come up, and it is always welcome to have folks to brainstorm with. You can find me on instagram at @imogenclendinning if you have questions, also the GitHub and Raspberry Pi Forums pages are very helpful, and if you are in Tkaronto, InterAccess runs different tech workshops, many of which can help those who are new to Raspberry Pis.

And when using solar-power, I think it is important to remember that a little will go a long way! You do not always need a three-foot solar panel and a giant lithium battery; you can build a reliable solar site with modest materials. Finally, my last note to those who would like to build a solar site, be patient in the process! Make peace with the confusion when your Raspberry Pi spits back riddles at you or your PV panel needs rewiring, for these challenges will help you learn the backend of the computer and the solar panel, and isn’t that ultimately more exploratory than a Squarespace template?

[1] During the COVID 19 pandemic the Canada Council for the Arts responded to this new need for “digital innovation” with temporary grant programs such as Digital Now! and the Digital Strategy Fund. These two funding streams indeed supported the creation of digital archives for arts institutions in Canada, however, these were temporary funding initiatives that were both paused in 2021.