Tuning Noise: Reading Data Infrastructure through Thresholds of Visibility Part 2 Dissertation 2026 Valeriia Chemerisova Architectural Association London | UK This dissertation investigates how architecture can engage with data infrastructures beyond designing their built components by reading the complex, largely invisible processes within them. To break through the technological opacity embedded in communication networks, data centres and computational systems, the dissertation turns to noise.The cybernetic understanding of noise as interference to be eliminated has profoundly shaped how communication infrastructures are understood. Drawing on systems theory, process philosophy and media theory, the thesis develops a multi-scalar framework in which noise is recast as a medium of relation: algorithmic remainder, infrastructural residue and ontological ground. Through three thematic “frequencies”, it examines noise as central to understanding the incomputable dynamics of algorithmic systems, the operational logics of data centres and the speculative cartographic practices through which infrastructural uncertainty becomes legible.Using case studies such as internet routing failures, data centre impermanence and the unrealised Arctic Connect fibre-optic cable proposal, the research demonstrates how “noisy” moments of delay, misrouting and uncertainty reveal infrastructures not as fixed objects but as dynamic systems constantly reshaped by technical, environmental and geopolitical forces.The dissertation's original contribution lies in repositioning architecture as a discipline capable of interpreting invisible operational landscapes. Rather than seeking complete transparency or technical mastery, it argues for a new infrastructural literacy that works with uncertainty and partial visibility. By tuning noise against the backdrop of optimisation, the thesis develops new methods for reading and representing the hidden processes through which communication infrastructures are organised, enabling more critical, accountable and emancipatory approaches to their future. Tutor(s) Maria Fedorchenko