Anna Kraher
Road to Futures Past
Video
STWST upstairs
Part of exhibition: open throughout
This video work explores how predictive power operates through different temporalities—how imagined future and constructed pasts are used to justify actions in the present. Both obscure the present as a site where the distribution of power occurs.
The first chapter focuses on a decade of Elon Musk’s repeated predictions that self-driving cars will arrive “next year,” showing how future promises are used to legitimize present actions and sustain corporate momentum. The second chapter examines predictive policing, where historical crime data is used to predict criminal activity. Here, the past serves to justify police practices in the present, targeting poor and racialized communities. In the final chapter, these narratives converge: the increasing use of Tesla vehicles in police fleets signals a growing alliance between tech elites and state power—where prediction becomes a tool for repressive actions.
Anna Kraher is an artist and researcher that explores the societal implications of artificial intelligence (AI) and Big Tech, with a particular focus on the interplay between AI ideologies, predictive analytics, and temporalities. Anna is a research assistant in the 'Ethics and Critical Theories of Artificial Intelligence' research group and part of the 'Data Ethics Outreach Lab' at Osnabrück University. She studied Design & Computation, Computer Science and Gender Studies in Berlin. https://www.anna-kraher.de