Netart, Installation

Barbie´s pool heated by Chipland

The Graphic Projecting Unit (GPU) of your computer is currently heating Barbie´s swimming pool.

Enter Chipland here:  Museum in Progress (MIP)

The interactive installation references data center infrastructures and semiconductor production as geopolitical monopolies driven by the global chip war and technocapitalist interests. At the same time, waste heat is made visible as a usable resource, and computational power becomes legible as a concrete, embodied, and operative dimension of global technological power relations.

The work draws on the pop-cultural narrative of Barbie and translates its exaggerated scales and value logics into the disproportionality of global technological and resource relations.

In the exhibition space, there is a QR code, a large screen, and a Barbie swimming pool placed on a white pedestal. Heat pipes connect the pool to GPUs performing live computational processes. A temperature display hovers above the pool, and hot steam rises from it periodically.

Using the QR code, visitors access the website Chipland, which belongs to Barbie. There, they learn which chip is installed in their mobile device. Upon entering Chipland, they stake a claim: the name of their chip appears on a flag that then waves over their territory. This territory consists of a shimmering, undiced dual-use silicon wafer. The movement of the flag is calculated live by the chip.

On the website, visitors can navigate to key geopolitical players in the semiconductor industry, such as ASML or Morris Chang. Barbie designs Chipland according to her own rules, similar to Barbieland: important objects can appear oversized, for instance a flag as large as an ASML machine. During the visit, the visitors’ mobile devices gradually heat up due to the computational load required by the website.

Barbie cleverly repurposes this computational power for her swimming pool: the waste heat from the GPUs and motherboards is transferred via precious metals directly into the pool. This keeps the water pleasantly warm and steaming 24/7, allowing Barbie to enjoy her cocktails at any time.

PDF Chipland (DE, EN will follow soon)

Materials: Flag with GPU designation, Chipland rainbow, Barbie font, tag cloud, ASML machine, wafer

Kathrin Stumreich, Philip Leitner, Chipland, 2025, digital mip, raising flags, museum in progress