Power Creep by Cailean Finn

Power Creep is a sculptural work that examines the relationship between Ireland’s energy landscapes and expanding demands of digital infrastructure driven by developments in Artificial Intelligence. Borrowed from gaming culture, the term power creep describes the gradual escalation of power within a system, where continual growth is required to maintain relevance. In this work, it reflects the exponential expansion of computational infrastructure, and its increasing consumption of energy, water, labour, and land within an Irish context.

Fragmented online digital vernacular is processed using a LLM; with its generated output distributing commands to an automated typewriter. The typewriter acts as both an interface and historical artefact within the computational stack; materialising the resource-intensive infrastructures obscured through the metaphor of the “cloud”. Power Creep reflects on the reconfiguration of the Irish landscape through the very technologies that consume it, asking who really benefits from this digital infrastructure? and what finite costs underpin its exponential ‘creep’?

Location: The Tower, The Digital Hub
Exhibition Dates + Times: 6-22nd of November, Wednesday to Sundays, 12-6pm
Artist Name/s (Pronoun/s): Cailean Finn (He/Him)

The SEED project is funded by a Research Ireland COALESCE Strand 2A grant. It is led by Dr. Trish Morgan from DCU’s School of Communications as Principal Investigator, along with Dr. Shirley Coyle from DCU’s School of Electronic Engineering as co-PI.