Bezzy looks like an ordinary plush, but a hug triggers audio captured near a real data center in Virginia. That jarring contrast is deliberate, pushing the local consequences of AI infrastructure into a form that feels impossible to ignore.
Here's what to know
The plush is part of Adopt A Data Center, a satirical effort by New York-based creative studio Basura made with the band Big Data. The toy's cuddly design is backed by sound from a Virginia resident Basura interviewed about living near a data center.
People in neighboring communities can deal with constant noise, along with effects tied to water, air quality, and energy use, even while these buildings stay largely invisible to everyone else. According to My Modern Met, the project gives those harder-to-see costs of data-center growth a physical form.
For Rajeev Basu, founder of Basura, that contrast is central to the work.
"Adopt A Data Center examines the stories we are sold, versus the reality communities experience, as one of the greatest revolutions in human history plays out," Basu explained.
More background
As AI development pushes more data-center construction into new areas, the systems supporting that growth can still seem remote to anyone who does not live beside them. To shorten that distance, Bezzy plays real audio recorded near a Virginia data center instead of an invented electronic drone.
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Its friendly face and plush body are intentionally mismatched with the endless mechanical noise it produces.
The collaboration also ties directly to Big Data's creative history. Adopt A Data Center arrives alongside the band's first major album, after the hit "Dangerous" similarly examined the complicated relationship between people and technology.
What's being done?
Basura and Big Data use sound, design, and satire to translate impacts felt by nearby communities into something immediate.
The concept is simple but pointed: Squeeze Bezzy, and it plays the unnerving sound of an actual Virginia data center. The idea turns a conversation about AI and infrastructure into something domestic and unavoidable, down to the suggestion that it may keep people awake.
For Alan Wilkis of Big Data, that discomfort is exactly the point. "Big Tech encroaches into every area of our lives. We're rarely totally happy about the benefits, but we're also powerless. AI data centers are like the physical embodiment of that same feeling."
Where can I learn more?
These stories look at the same pressures behind Bezzy: data-center expansion, neighborhood backlash, and the constant noise some communities face.
• In Chesapeake and Virginia Beach, officials imposed a permits freeze as data-center pressure intensified.
• In Louisville, a resident played the data center hum publicly to show what neighbors endure.
• In Vineland, neighbors sued over noise audible a mile from a nearby data center.
• In Arizona's Pima County, officials flagged potential heat, air, and noise risks from data centers.
• In Louisiana, residents pressed Amazon over noise from proposed campuses in Bossier and Caddo.
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