The Backup Plan
Mél Hogan & co.
The Backup Plan is a podcast series that traces an emerging technology that promises to store infinitely more data at minimal environmental cost. It’s a technology as mysterious and miraculous as it is mundane; as molecular as it is massive. That technology is DNA.
This podcast features conversations with scientists, scholars, industry specialists, archivists, and artists that explore the past, present, and future of data storage, its environmental impacts, and the science behind DNA-based data storage. We hear from companies that are on the forefront of developing this new technology and how they envisage the future of data infrastructures from storage to computing, and archivists who may use DNA-based data storage in the future. We also chat with an artist who creates alternative data imaginaries to critique the political, affective, and environmental dimensions of big tech.
This project is part of Genomic Media, a research project funded by a