calculating empires (2023)

Spanning five centuries and twenty-four metres, Calculating Empires charts the entanglement of colonial extraction, computation, and control. The project begins not with computers but with caravels, tracing how planetary-scale systems emerged from ship logs, cartographic abstractions, and classificatory violence. Crawford and Joler present a vast diagram that renders these histories with forensic density. Gutenberg’s press foreshadows generative AI, biometric archives mirror colonial prisons, school bells align with imperial time zones. The map highlights how technologies of calculation, both digital and pre-digital, are rooted in specific historical circumstances yet have grown so vast that their design is often forgotten. More than a diagram, Calculating Empires is a call to action to rethink and dismantle inherited imperial logics that continue to shape infrastructures and daily life.

Kate Crawford & Vladan Joler, Calculating Empires: A Genealogy of Technology and Power Since 1500, (2023), immersive physical installation spanning 24 meters in length and 3 meters in height.

LOCATION: Muzej suvremene umjetnosti Istre ( Museum of Contemporary Art of Istria)