Entrance to Mount10, a the data centre known as “The Swiss Fort Knox”, Saanen-Gstaad, Switzerland, 2010. Built in 1946 by the Swiss army, this former military bunker was converted into a data centre in 1993. It is linked by a glass fibre connection to another bunker 10km away, Swiss Fort Knox II, which is still Swiss army property. Clients are assured the army has no control over their activities. Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery
Entrance to Mount10, a the data centre known as “The Swiss Fort Knox”, Saanen-Gstaad, Switzerland, 2010. Built in 1946 by the Swiss army, this former military bunker was converted into a data centre in 1993. It is linked by a glass fibre connection to another bunker 10km away, Swiss Fort Knox II, which is still Swiss army property. Clients are assured the army has no control over their activities.
Main corridor of Mount10, a data center known as “The Swiss Fort Knox”, Saanen-Gstaad, Switzerland, 2010. With more than 26,000 former bunkers, Switzerland is a coveted location for information storage and backup. The fact that the Patriot Act applies only to data stored on American territory or in American companies abroad has attracted many clients to European facilities. Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery
Main corridor of Mount10, a data center known as “The Swiss Fort Knox”, Saanen-Gstaad, Switzerland, 2010. With more than 26,000 former bunkers, Switzerland is a coveted location for information storage and backup. The fact that the Patriot Act applies only to data stored on American territory or in American companies abroad has attracted many clients to European facilities.
Entrance to Bahnhof.se, “Pionen”, a data center in Stockholm, Sweden, 2011. Located 30 meters below ground, hewn into the rock below the Sofia church, this former Cold War military bunker was refurbished in 2008 by the Bahnhof company. It's built to withstand a nuclear explosion and its backup generators are made from German submarine engines. Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery
Entrance to Bahnhof.se, “Pionen”, a data center in Stockholm, Sweden, 2011. Located 30 meters below ground, hewn into the rock below the Sofia church, this former Cold War military bunker was refurbished in 2008 by the Bahnhof company. It's built to withstand a nuclear explosion and its backup generators are made from German submarine engines.
Basement of SafeHost, a data centre in Plan-Les-Ouates, Geneva, Switzerland, 2012. Created in 2000 in a suburb of Geneva, SafeHost is an entirely private data centre. Clients include financial institutions and international organizations as well as private businesses. Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery
Basement of SafeHost, a data centre in Plan-Les-Ouates, Geneva, Switzerland, 2012. Created in 2000 in a suburb of Geneva, SafeHost is an entirely private data centre. Clients include financial institutions and international organizations as well as private businesses.
Servers, Bahnhof.se, “Pionen”, Stockholm, Sweden, 2011. Bahnhof holds two Wikileaks servers. The Swedish company won't concern itself with the contents, however. As long as Wikileaks continues to pay the rent, Bahnhof sees no problem in continuing to provide the space. Other data centers such as Swiss Fort Knox have refused to host Wikileaks. Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery
Servers, Bahnhof.se, “Pionen”, Stockholm, Sweden, 2011. Bahnhof holds two Wikileaks servers. The Swedish company won't concern itself with the contents, however. As long as Wikileaks continues to pay the rent, Bahnhof sees no problem in continuing to provide the space. Other data centers such as Swiss Fort Knox have refused to host Wikileaks.
Main room hewn into the rock, Bahnhof.se, “Pionen”, Stockholm, Sweden, 2011. This high security computer centre in based in a nuclear shelter used by the Swedish civil defense during the Cold War. In the main room, under tight security, the server cabinets are disaggregated and maintained by a team of computer engineers. Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery
Main room hewn into the rock, Bahnhof.se, “Pionen”, Stockholm, Sweden, 2011. This high security computer centre in based in a nuclear shelter used by the Swedish civil defense during the Cold War. In the main room, under tight security, the server cabinets are disaggregated and maintained by a team of computer engineers.
Business continuity room, SafeHost, Plan-Les-Ouates, Geneva, Switzerland, 2012. This room with 300 workplaces in the SafeHost building can be rapidly activated at the request of a client following critical data loss. Backup and recovery of client data can be managed here. Cafeteria, conference room, printers and telephones are all available. Within hours, normal business activity can be resumed. Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery
Business continuity room, SafeHost, Plan-Les-Ouates, Geneva, Switzerland, 2012. This room with 300 workplaces in the SafeHost building can be rapidly activated at the request of a client following critical data loss. Backup and recovery of client data can be managed here. Cafeteria, conference room, printers and telephones are all available. Within hours, normal business activity can be resumed.
Server cabinets, Bahnhof.se, “Pionen”, Stockholm, Sweden, 2011. When it came to the design of this facility, Director Jon Karlung was inspired by sci-fi films Logan’s Run, Silent Running, Star Wars, and the Bond films. “I was thinking of the Blofeld set-up and even considered adopting a white cat. But that might have been going a little too far,” jokes Karlung. Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery
Server cabinets, Bahnhof.se, “Pionen”, Stockholm, Sweden, 2011. When it came to the design of this facility, Director Jon Karlung was inspired by sci-fi films Logan’s Run, Silent Running, Star Wars, and the Bond films. “I was thinking of the Blofeld set-up and even considered adopting a white cat. But that might have been going a little too far,” jokes Karlung.
Server cabinet, SafeHost, Plan-Les-Ouates, Geneva, Switzerland, 2012. According to a report by Brainserve and Securitas of 5 May 2011, there are three causes of data loss: human error (14 percent), system failure (24 percent) and malicious attacks (62 percent). Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery
Server cabinet, SafeHost, Plan-Les-Ouates, Geneva, Switzerland, 2012. According to a report by Brainserve and Securitas of 5 May 2011, there are three causes of data loss: human error (14 percent), system failure (24 percent) and malicious attacks (62 percent).
Business continuity room, SafeHost, Plan-Les-Ouates, Geneva, Switzerland, 2012. Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery
Business continuity room, SafeHost, Plan-Les-Ouates, Geneva, Switzerland, 2012.
Data repository at Sispace, Dülliken, Switzerland, 2010. Sensitive data is kept in yellow boxes with a barcode, stacked in rows and layers. The building is guarded 24/7. Storage is in acid-free cardboard boxes, with fire protection and guaranteed maximum security for the reassurance of the client. Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery
Data repository at Sispace, Dülliken, Switzerland, 2010. Sensitive data is kept in yellow boxes with a barcode, stacked in rows and layers. The building is guarded 24/7. Storage is in acid-free cardboard boxes, with fire protection and guaranteed maximum security for the reassurance of the client.
An interior wall of Mount10, in Saanen-Gstaad, Switzerland, 2010. Originally, a bunker built by the Swiss army in 1946. The basic infrastructure is original. Only the contents have changed.
An interior wall of Mount10, in Saanen-Gstaad, Switzerland, 2010. Originally, a bunker built by the Swiss army in 1946. The basic infrastructure is original. Only the contents have changed.
Central room of the data centre of Mount10, Saanen-Gstaad, Switzerland, 2010. The server space here is rented on a yearly basis. The room is under permanent camera surveillance, constant guard, and is protected by an anti-ABC (atomic, bacteriological, chemical) system. There are biometric controls for entry to the room. Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery
Central room of the data centre of Mount10, Saanen-Gstaad, Switzerland, 2010. The server space here is rented on a yearly basis. The room is under permanent camera surveillance, constant guard, and is protected by an anti-ABC (atomic, bacteriological, chemical) system. There are biometric controls for entry to the room.
A guard waiting for the armoured door to open in one of Mount10’s many corridors. Different uniforms are used and adapted or omitted for client visits to accommodate the sensibilities of the client and the situation in the client’s country (war, dictatorship, coup d'etat). Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery
A guard waiting for the armoured door to open in one of Mount10’s many corridors. Different uniforms are used and adapted or omitted for client visits to accommodate the sensibilities of the client and the situation in the client’s country (war, dictatorship, coup d'etat).
The European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI), Hinxton, Cambridge, UK, 2013. This seemingly empty test-tube contains Shakespeare’s sonnets, a Martin Luther King speech, a jpeg photo and a copy of the 1953 article by Crick and Watson describing the structure of DNA. This information is encoded and stored in synthesized DNA form. Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery
The European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI), Hinxton, Cambridge, UK, 2013. This seemingly empty test-tube contains Shakespeare’s sonnets, a Martin Luther King speech, a jpeg photo and a copy of the 1953 article by Crick and Watson describing the structure of DNA. This information is encoded and stored in synthesized DNA form.
Not all data centers are the same. There are cloud storage mega-centers all over Silicon Valley that take care of our smartphone camera rolls and contacts lists. There are the NSA’s data centers, which do similar things but the permissions are (at least in theory) different.
In his series Deposit, Swiss photographer Yann Mingard reveals another type of data storage facility: the privately owned bunker space within which individuals, companies and even nation-states secure their most precious code, papers, and in some cases, genetic material. These data centers aren’t intended to intercept or analyze data; they’re merely meant to protect the contents from virus, loss and—most of all—from snooping.
Mingard’s exquisite darkened images of data centers from Switzerland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom form the fourth and final chapter of Deposit, a sprawling four-year project which meditates on the anxieties of contemporary life. Deposit delves deep into the real and perceived threats to human survival, and the emerging technologies that promise security.
The photos reveal another type of data storage facility: the privately owned bunker space within which individuals, companies and even nation-states secure their most precious code, papers, and in some cases, genetic material.
Though finely crafted views of these subterranean sites, Mingard’s images are not homage to them. He feels the hyper-secure storage industry is indicative of a widespread desperation to protect what we have as we careen toward uncertain times.
“We’re in a grey zone between the past and the future,” he says. “We have nostalgia for the past, but our efforts looking toward the future and to climate change are ones of anxiety. Between the present and the future are the politics and economics of crisis.”
Mingard is hip to the changes, as his hometown of Neuchâtel is base to one of Switzerland’s largest data-storage companies. The country as a whole leads the secure storage industry. This makes sense for a culture with a reputation for blind neutrality and discretion when dealing with the assets and bank accounts of the world’s minted.
Swiss centers hold the possessions of Russia, Kazahkstan, Qatar and other Arab nations, says Mingard. “But it’s all denied, of course.” Recently, an unnamed Asian government negotiated to store all its digital assets in Mount10, at the data center known as “The Swiss Fort Knox” in Saanen-Gstaad.
As well as digital archives, clients store physical archives. Foreign clients, including Americans, have flooded in to purchase protection. Airstrips are located close by, and glossy brochures promote former military bunkers’ security features.
“It’s pure marketing,” Mingard says. “The employees perform [for clients' visits] and the look must be exciting, like James Bond. The staff wear different uniforms depending on the proclivities of the client—civilian clothes if the client is a controversial political figure.”
The data centers that were set up to pander to the wealthiest individuals were the most difficult to access, says Mingard.
“No one’s working down there. There are no lights on! It’s a cave into which you put seeds each month, and then close the door.”
The darkened look of his images and the carefully negotiated access in Deposit are related. Mingard knew access wouldn’t be easy, and so he had to know exactly what type of shot he wanted before entering. As he had shot specimens against dark backgrounds previously for other parts of the series, he decided to continue the palette with his interior studies of the data centers. It was a practical solution.
“These are bunkers,” he says. “No one’s working down there. There are no lights on! It’s a cave into which you put seeds each month, and then close the door. A specimen is kept in a plastic bag, in an aluminum bag, in a plastic box, in a concrete bunker, under the ground, in minus 30 degrees!”
The shroud of darkness also is a portent to a future of withered biodiversity. All the plants and animal specimens in storage were shot ex-situ, extricated from nature.
“We’re losing our biodiversity. We’ve pretty much conceded that we cannot conserve nature in situ,” says Mingard who is increasingly worried by the involvement of private companies in the preservation of humanity’s shared biological assets.
“If humans collect their own sperm it is their own business, but the collection of crop seeds is in the public interest,” he says before pointing out that of the 1,500 seed vaults around the world many are administered or funded in part by NGO’s such as Rockefeller and Gates Foundations, or corporations like Syngenta, Pioneer, and Monsanto.
Before becoming a photographer, Mingard was a gardener trained at the Ecole de Marcelin. Through his images, he wants us to think about how we deal with nature and its loss, and he wants us to think about our definitions of the natural. The final image in the book (and the final image in this gallery) is a vial containing Shakespeare’s sonnets, a Martin Luther King speech, a jpeg photo and a copy of the 1953 article by Crick and Watson describing the structure of DNA. The information is encoded and stored in synthesized DNA form.
The natural is being reduced to numbers and letters, and so it is natural (pun intended) that Deposit ends inside the data centers.
“Information and code is the currency of the future. It is what drives the past to the present to the future,” says Mingard. “Maybe you and I will be reduced to code and stored? Reduced to virtually nothing. This vial seems empty. You see nothing.”
Data centers are “the end point of everything” says Mingard, but he isn’t trying to be fatalistic about the indexation, archiving and codifying he has witnessed.
“I’m not cynical; I am just looking at the developments,” he says, “I was surprised to see geneticists, scientists, politicians and the public so fearful. People are pessimistic. “
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