(en) Imagerie chlorophylle des machines

Chlorophyll imaging of machines

2026-2027 · Chlorophyll print

Screenshots of data centers collected via Google Street View are printed onto plant leaves through the sole action of sunlight. This alternative photographic process, known as chlorophyll printing, turns vegetation into a light sensitive surface to transpose the invisible infrastructures of the digital world onto organic matter. The image exists only through the combination of sunlight, plant, and time, in direct opposition to the uninterrupted operation of data centers.

The images collected around construction sites in Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, Brazil, and the United States capture these locations in their transitional state. Construction makes visible what will soon be concealed: cables, foundations, electricity distribution networks, upturned earth, workers on their lunch break. Once the building is complete, this materiality disappears behind a discreet and unsuspecting architecture.

These raw images call into question the iconography that the media typically associates with these technical environments: that of an orderly succession of servers in endless, human-free corridors.

The plant species chosen as supports are native to the territories where these infrastructures are being built.

→ Produced with the support of the City of Rouen as part of the Bourse Impulsion 2026.
→ Maryse Bunel, “Oriane Pichuèque crée une imagerie chlorophylle”, Relikto, 1 November 2026.