Collective Agency in
an Era of Authoritarian Automation
Stefan Jonsson & Anna Ådahl
Collective Agency in an Era of Authoritarian Automation is a fine art practice-based research project funded by Vetenskapsrådet (The Swedish Research Council) conducted by The Collective Agency which is constituted by professor and writer Stefan Jonsson and postdoc researcher and visual artist Anna Ådahl.
Will democracy survive the 21st century? Through artistic practice and theoretical dialogue, this project explores how authoritarian automated regimes shape today’s politics and collective protests while apparently foreclosing the political agency of collectives as well as individuals.
The project investigates, through multiple mediums and art practices, the ways in which human bodies become data through multiple harvesting and image-based scanning processes. To investigate collective behavior and agency is shaped by computational technologies which align crowd behavior with political programs and market strategies that defy democratic values.
To then aesthetically identify/portray how embodied subjective agency and collective assembly interrupt such processes of collective automation. Speculating over future scenarios – including the deployment of digital tools and quantum computing – we seek to make abstract processes concrete.
info@collectiveagency.se
Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm
Full Program
Large size, work in progress
Anna Ådahl
2025
Anna Ådahl
2025
Work in progress
Anna Ådahl
2025
Anna Ådahl
2025
Anna Ådahl
Realised with the help of Martin Christensen
Anna Ådahl
2025
© 2025
Anna Ådahl & Stefan Jonsson
Anna Ådahl & Stefan Jonsson
Design by
Jordana Loeb & Anna Ådahl
Jordana Loeb & Anna Ådahl