Tung-Hui Hu reads from his recent book A Prehistory of the Cloud, and joins Lily Cox-Richard to discuss relationships between art practices, media, and the hidden infrastructures around us.

In A Prehistory of the Cloud, Hu shows that the cloud grew out of such older networks as railroad tracks, sewer lines, and television circuits. Hu argues that the cloud grafts digital technologies onto older ways of exerting power over a population. But because we invest the cloud with cultural fantasies about security and participation, we fail to recognize its militarized origins and ideology.

Tung-Hui Hu is also the author of three books of poetry, The Book of Motion (2003), Mine (2007), and Greenhouses, Lighthouses (Copper Canyon Press, 2013). He has received awards from Yaddo, MacDowell Colony, the NEA, and the San Francisco Foundation. A former network engineer, Hu now teaches poetry and digital studies at the University of Michigan.

This event is supported in part by Poets & Writers.