The 'Reverse Futures' exhibition is running in Johannesburg until December 5th at the Joburg Contemporary Art Foundation (JCAF) in Forest Town. It features a large-scale map created by AI researcher Kate Crawford and Serbian artist Vladan Joler, which demonstrates the evolution of technology and power since 1500.
The main exhibit, 'Calculating Empires: A Genealogy of Technology and Power Since 1500' (2023), asks the viewer whether the future of AI and automation is being built on the same models of exploitation that defined the past.
'Reverse Futures' opened on June 26th and is the third and final part of JCAF's 'Worldmaking' trilogy, following the shows 'Ecospheres' in 2024 and 'Structures' in 2025. It brings together works in robotics, virtual reality, and space themes from artists from South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Argentina, Lebanon, Serbia, and other countries.
Crawford, author of the book 'Atlas of AI', and Joler describe their work as 'a large-scale visualization of research studying how technical and social structures have co-evolved over five centuries,' tracing 'technological patterns of colonialism, militarization, automation, and enclosure since 1500.'
The online version allows viewing the history of technology from the telephone to the internet. Hundreds of drawings and texts are arranged along a vertical timeline, starting with the 16th century at the base, while systems varying 'from algorithms to architecture, from bodies to borders' traverse this axis.
Crawford and Joler note that 'the practices of past empires are now reflected in the highly concentrated technological and military industries of the 21st century,' warning that industrial changes in AI lead to the concentration of power in the hands of even fewer people. They emphasize the need to confront the past to build the future.
Robots, astronauts, and caves
Argentine artist Paula Gaetano Adi presented the work Guanaquerx, which is positioned as 'the first robot to cross the Andes,' recreating José de San Martín's 1817 expedition from Argentina to Chile.
Next to the 'Calculating Empires' exhibit is 'Refugee Astronaut X' (2024) by Yanki Shonibare, which JCAF describes as 'an African astronaut searching for a habitable world.' Installations by Tracy Kwai, Georgia Munnick, and Gaetano Adi transport visitors underwater to hear the voices of the Kalk Bay community, and also immerse them in the 'contradictory smells of Johannesburg.'
The exhibition's name derives from the architectural practice of Nairobi Cave_bureau, whose installation Shimoni Slave Cave (2022-2023) explores slavery in Kenyan caves. Cave_bureau introduced the term 'reverse futurism' to understand the consequences of colonialism in Africa, particularly in Kenya. The journal Future Observatory describes this as 'understanding that to exist in the future, we must correct the mistakes of the past.'
JCAF asserts that ideas about the future are often dominated by Western-rooted narratives and technologies, frequently depicted in Hollywood science fiction as either utopian or dystopian. However, for many residents of the Global South, the future is 'not distant, but rooted in the present.'
Curator Clive Kellner, Executive Director of JCAF, stated that the exhibition examines technology 'from a local perspective, asking fundamentally humanistic questions about the world we live in.' He asks: 'How can we envision a better world order that is not built on power and exploitation, but allows us to think of our future in South Africa as part of a continuity of community, environmental care, and historical learning?'