Cloud Control, or the Network as Medium

Cloud computing is an increasingly commonplace term today, used to describe the relocation of hardware resources, programs, and data from individual, local machines to a network accessible from a variety of platforms and devices. In unpicking the complex cultural logic that cloud computing emblematizes, this essay analyzes the connections between the interrelated histories of cybernetics, computing, and distributed networks and the emerging economic models that ubiquitous networked computing facilitates.