What is Critical Cartography?
Critical cartography is one of the possible methods to examine, explore, and think about the relations between technology and power. Not just to document and visualize those relations but also as a toolbox that can enable us to rethink underlying concepts and meanings. Calculating Empires, an artwork produced in collaboration with critical Al scholar Kate Crawford, recently exhibited at Fondazione Prada in Milan, examines, maps, and critiques the relationship between technology and power over the last five centuries. Like a detailed circuit diagram, it follows the imperial pathways of power across many systems – colonialism, militarization, automation, and enclosure – to show how they still subjugate and how they might be unwound.
