ULTRA/INFRAstructures: LANDSCAPES OF CAPITALISM
Performance Lecture by Nella Piatek and Melissa Schwarz
2026
Creative Direction: Nella Piatek and Melissa Schwarz
Text and Narration: Nella Piatek and Melissa Schwarz
Editing: Nella Piatek
Music: Darren Curtis
Artworks featured:
Ode to Didcot Power Station' (2005) by Kit Wright
'Menorah' (1993) Painting by Roger Wagner
This project was commissioned by Xeno Futurism as part of the symposium In/Human Infrastructures at Alt_R, May 2026
event description ︎
Exhibited at:
‘In/Human Infrastructures: A 3 day Symposium by Xeno Futurism’ organised by Xenofuturism and Gossamerfog and curated with Elliott Higgs at Alt_R, London United Kingdom, May 22-24th 2026
Performance Lecture by Nella Piatek and Melissa Schwarz
2026
Creative Direction: Nella Piatek and Melissa Schwarz
Text and Narration: Nella Piatek and Melissa Schwarz
Editing: Nella Piatek
Music: Darren Curtis
Artworks featured:
Ode to Didcot Power Station' (2005) by Kit Wright
'Menorah' (1993) Painting by Roger Wagner
This project was commissioned by Xeno Futurism as part of the symposium In/Human Infrastructures at Alt_R, May 2026
event description ︎
Exhibited at:
‘In/Human Infrastructures: A 3 day Symposium by Xeno Futurism’ organised by Xenofuturism and Gossamerfog and curated with Elliott Higgs at Alt_R, London United Kingdom, May 22-24th 2026
ULTRA/INFRAstructures: Landscapes of Capitalism is a lecture film which focuses on both postindustrial landscapes and computational systems, arguing that infrastructures are not neutral technological developments but ideological frameworks that organise how environments, histories, and futures become visible, legible, and governable.
The work investigates the relationship between knowledge, power, and material transformation. Using the site of the former Didcot Power Station in Oxfordshire as its central case study, the film traces the transition from fossil-fuel infrastructure to digital infrastructure. Once a symbol of Britain's industrial energy production, the site has become a postindustrial landscape that is now proposed as the location for a major Amazon data centre. This transformation serves as a lens through which the work examines how infrastructures evolve while the logics of extraction, accumulation, and territorial reorganisation persist.
Through a combination of landscape documentation, critical theory, and visual narration, the film questions whose knowledge is legitimised, whose histories are erased, and how dominant systems shape our understanding of nature, technology, and development. By making these often invisible systems perceptible, the work invites audiences to critically reflect on the conditions under which knowledge is produced and to imagine alternative ways of understanding and relating to the environments we inhabit.
The work investigates the relationship between knowledge, power, and material transformation. Using the site of the former Didcot Power Station in Oxfordshire as its central case study, the film traces the transition from fossil-fuel infrastructure to digital infrastructure. Once a symbol of Britain's industrial energy production, the site has become a postindustrial landscape that is now proposed as the location for a major Amazon data centre. This transformation serves as a lens through which the work examines how infrastructures evolve while the logics of extraction, accumulation, and territorial reorganisation persist.
Through a combination of landscape documentation, critical theory, and visual narration, the film questions whose knowledge is legitimised, whose histories are erased, and how dominant systems shape our understanding of nature, technology, and development. By making these often invisible systems perceptible, the work invites audiences to critically reflect on the conditions under which knowledge is produced and to imagine alternative ways of understanding and relating to the environments we inhabit.
