'Serpent Disco' explores the infrastructures of belief and power. It examines the relationship between two systems that have shaped human interaction and societal organization: religious places of worship, and the electrical-internet grid.
At the heart of this exploration is San Francisco, a city emblematic of technological advancement, and shaped by a diversity of belief. San Francisco can be seen as a terminus of the colonization of North America; where the electrical infrastructure – now exponentially more complex – that passed telegrams from East to West coalesced on the shores of the Pacific. Powering that infrastructural expansion were beliefs, often involving religious fervor: telephone poles, and Christian crosses.
A map of this infrastructure serves as a glimpse into a system of systems. The glimpse is of an intermingling of sacred spaces where communities have traditionally congregated to share beliefs, and that of the sprawling, seen-but-unseen, network-architectures of glass and light through which are observed a digital paradigm and a secular faith. A photograph of these convergences may invite its viewer to reflect on the power and belief structures involved in the formation of the electrical-internet grid; 'holy sites' of limited access yet universal influence guarded by silicon valley ‘priests’.