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Heft 3/26 – Teslocracy
Whether the energy transition, digitalization, or visions of space exploration, the demand for speed and innovation is increasingly shaping the political sphere and its decision-making processes. What emerges is a new configuration of power: an authoritarian politics of efficiency with minimal public participation, legitimized primarily through technocratic reasoning. The issue Teslocracy, developed in collaboration with guest editors Christoph Chwatal, Alexander Karschnia, and Heimo Lattner, explores these tendencies—from the restructuring of democratic institutions and the ever-expanding deregulation of the digital economy to techno-utopian fantasies of colonizing Mars. The focus is not so much on individual proponents or corporations, but rather on the convergence of contemporary developments at the intersection of ecological transformation and technocapitalist forms of domination.
The vision of governing states as if they were corporations—with CEOs instead of democratically elected representatives—has long since become a tangible political agenda pursued by influential tech billionaires. Inspired by ideas associated with anarcho-capitalism (including Murray Rothbard aWhnd Curtis Yarvin), these developments constitute an attack on the foundations of Western democracies, justified through narratives that emphasize efficiency, innovation, and future security.
The issue examines the aesthetic, visual-political, and ideological dimensions of these transformations from the perspective of art and cultural criticism. Which narratives accompany or sustain the rise of "Teslocracy"? What role do art and visual culture play within the nexus of techno-futurism, ecological rhetoric, and authoritarian planning? And how do artistic practices respond to the transformation of the democratic public sphere into a smart, hyper-optimized mode of governance?
Release Date: September 15, 2026