DATAS The Data and the Sovereign

This book confronts one of the potentially most defining struggles of the coming decades: the battle for sovereignty in an age when data and computation have risen above the law and impact human agency on unprecedented levels. As algorithmic systems increasingly influence public discourse, automate but also manipulate political decision-making, and shape the conduct of war, the foundations of democracy are being rewritten in code. It brings together leading voices in art, philosophy, and technology, mainly from Central and Eastern Europe, to examine how personal and national self-determination can survive the dual forces of surveillance capitalism and authoritarianism in the age of artificial intelligence.

Through essays and insights into practice-based research projects that resulted in artworks, the volume explores digital disobedience, algorithmic affect warfare, speculative counter-territories, and the flaws of representation based on corrupted data. The featured artistic projects—ranging from interactive installations through narrative short films to software art—do more than critique power: they attempt to model ethical alternatives to extractive digital empires and technofeudal governance.

The publication is the outcome of the project DATAS: The Data and the Sovereign, which entailed artist residencies, a large-scale international group show at the Galerie Rudolfinum in Prague, and a rich discursive programme.