Calculating Empires

A Genealogy of Technology and Power Since 1500

Calculating Empires is a large-scale research visualization and physical installation exploring how technical and social structures co-evolved over five centuries. It traces technological patterns of colonialism, militarization, automation, and enclosure since 1500 to show how these forces still subjugate and how they might be unwound.

Credits

Calculating Empires: A Genealogy of Technology and Power Since 1500
By Kate Crawford and Vladan Joler (2023)

Acknowledgments

Sarah Ciston - Research and design associate
Francis Corry, Annie Dorsen, Edward Kang, Will Orr, and Hamsini Sridharan - Research advisors
Hannah Franklin and Michael Weinberg - Project management
Olivia Solis Villaverde and Milutin Marinovic - Website production

With thanks to Prof. Mike Ananny, Dr. Pradnya Bivalkar, Chiara Costa, Elliott Crawford, Prof. Dubravko Culibrk, Melodi Dincer, Prof. Bernard Geoghegan, Prof. Mario Hibert, Jake Karr, Prof. Djordje Krivokapic, Dr. Sasha Luccioni, Dr. Ida Momennejad, Prof. John Modern, Trevor Paglen, Laura Poitras, Gordan Savičić, Prof. Justin E. H. Smith, Prof. Felix Stalder, Jer Thorp, and Prof. Fred Turner. We'd also like to acknowledge everyone in the Knowing Machines Project, the Share Foundation, the fellows of the Robert Bosch Academy, Australian National University School of Cybernetics, and the Perast Monastery retreat.

Contact

info.at.calculatingempires.net

Supported by

The Sloan Foundation, as part of the Knowing Machines Project (https://knowingmachines.org)
The Robert Bosch Academy (https://www.robertboschacademy.de/)
Fondazione Prada (https://www.fondazioneprada.org/project/calculating-empires/)

Awards

Calculating Empires has won the Boghossian Foundation International Prize, in 2024. Reflecting its mission to bridge East and West through the arts, the Boghossian Foundation International Prize celebrates artists whose work fosters a better mutual understanding among cultures.

Calculating Empires has won the European Commission's 2024 Grand Prize for Artistic Exploration in Science, Technology, and the Arts. The jury noted that "Calculating Empires challenges us to redefine our relationship with current socio-technical structures. By asking how we got where we are today, we can (re)consider where we might be going." Previous winners include Richard Mosse, Holly Herndon and Matt Dryhurst,.

Current and Upcoming Exhibitions

LABoral - Gijón, Spain (January 2025)
Mori Art Museum - Tokyo, Japan (February 2025)
Design Museum of Barcelona - Barcelona, Spain (February 2025)
Jeu de Paume - Paris, France (April 2025)
La Biennale di Venezia Architecture - Venice, Italy (May 2025)
Lisbon Triennale - Lisbon, Portugal (October 2025)

Previous Exhibitions

Premiered at Fondazione Prada - Milan, Italy (November 2023 - February 2024)
KW Institute in Berlin, as part of the Poetics of Encryption exhibition (February 2024 - May 2024)
Ars Electronica Festival - Linz, Austria (September 2024)
Rijksmusuem Twenthe - Enschede, Netherlands (September 2024-February 2025)
Akerk and Noorderlicht Studeio - Groningen, Netherlands (October 2024-January 2025)

Technical specification

Calculating Empires is an immersive physical installation that can be staged in different formats. The minimum size of the work is 24 meters in length, and 3 meters in height. It can be staged as a circular work, or as two wall murals facing each other. It can also be installed as a large-scale floor work.

We include two large format handmade books to be shown alongside the work. One is for the themes of Communication and Computation, the other is for Control and Classification. They are printed on semi-transparent paper, so the timelines overlap, and they allow visitors to read the details up close. We stage the books with pencils, to invite audience members to make their own annotations and notes in the books, which we collect at the end of the exhibition as an open form of feedback.

Biographies

Prof. Kate Crawford is a leading scholar of the impacts of artificial intelligence. She is a research professor at USC Annenberg in Los Angeles, a senior principal researcher at MSR New York, and was the inaugural chair of AI and Justice at the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris. Her book Atlas of AI won multiple awards, was named a book of the year by Science and the Financial Times, and is translated into 12 languages. She leads the Knowing Machines Project, an international research collaboration studying the foundations of AI. Her artworks and visualizations have been widely exhibited, are in the permanent collections of MoMA, the V&A Museum, Ars Electronica, and the Design Museum, and have been recognized with the Aryton Prize. Kate was named by Time Magazine’s TIME100 as one of the most influential people in AI.

Prof. Vladan Joler is an academic, researcher, and artist whose work blends data investigations, critical cartography, investigative journalism, and data visualization. He is SHARE Foundation co-founder and professor at the New Media Department of the University of Novi Sad. Vladan Joler's work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the V&A Museum, and the Design Museum in London, and also in the permanent exhibition of the Ars Electronica Center. His work has been exhibited in more than a hundred international exhibitions worldwide.

Installation views

Exhibition view of “Calculating Empires”
Rijksmusuem Twenthe - Enschede, Netherlands
Photo: Lotte Stekelenburg

Exhibition view of “Calculating Empires”
Osservatorio Fondazione Prada, Milan
Photo: Piercarlo Quecchia - DSL Studio / @piercarloquecchia - @dsl__studio
Courtesy: Fondazione Prada

Exhibition view of “Calculating Empires”
Osservatorio Fondazione Prada, Milan
Photo: Patrick Toomey Neir
Courtesy: Fondazione Prada

Exhibition view of “Poetics of Encryption” Installation “Calculating Empires”
KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin
Courtesy: KW Institute for Contemporary Art