Katherine Rae Diemert (k.d.rae) is a visual artist based out of Hamilton, Canada. She makes art that explores our relationship to the natural and digital worlds. You can reach her at kdiemert@gmail.com.
Tracery
Winter 2025
Acetate prints
Two panels, 99 x 79" each
Exhibited at Anna Leonowens Gallery in Halifax, NS, as part of Net Works
Filed under INSTALLATION
︎︎︎Detail
Hanging in the double windows of the gallery are a grid of acetate prints, each with a web browser window filled with a red-tinted map showing land and water, with transparent lines denoting underwater data cables. Pieced together, they show the entire map of these cables, reaching from coast to coast of every continent around the world, save for Antartica. These undersea fibre-optic cables carry 99% of all digital communications between continents in the form of infrared light. The name Tracery comes from the computational traceroute protocol, used to request information about the path that data takes to get from one server to another. In architecture, the term describes decorative ribs or spaces in window frames that both provide support and creates decorative patterns. Here, light is media, both in the reality of the cables, the traceries in the gallery windows, and the window as a portal for projection.
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