Hemispherical Stacks Open Call
MIT x Antikythera Journal
Online Submission
January 1 – March 30, 2025
Antikythera invites researchers and writers working across geopolitics, planetarity, institutional and state futurisms, science fiction, and international relations to submit scenarios for a book and online journal on the topic of Hemispherical Stacks. The first collection of scenarios will be published online in October 2025, as part of the Antikythera Journal with MIT Press. Collections will continue to be added biannually.
About Hemispherical Stacks
Hemispherical Stacks is one of Antikythera’s core research themes, focused on the geopolitics of planetary computation.
Geopolitical dynamics today revolve around computation. Data is now a sovereign substance, something over which and from which sovereignty is claimed. Cloud platforms take on roles traditionally performed by modern states, crossing national borders and oceans. Meanwhile, states morph into cloud platforms.
From Beijing to Brussels, this marks a shift toward a planetary architecture with hemispheres of influence. These divide the planet into sovereign computational systems extending from energy and mineral sourcing, intercontinental transmission, and cloud platforms to addressing systems, interface cultures, and different politics of the “user.” Politics succumbs to governance, governance warps politics.
The shift toward multipolar geopolitics and the segmentation of planetary computation into hemispherical stacks not only track one another; they are the same phenomenon. These emergent transitions, in constant shift and flux, require extensive mapping.
In the Hemispherical Stacks research area, we cluster these emergent transitions into six research topics:
Sovereign Data: From apps to routers to climate monitoring, state sovereignty is not only claimed over data, but increasingly it is derived from the claim: the state is that which reserves the right to produce, aggregate, protect, and model data about particular people, places, and things. Is the state that which models the model, or is the model that which gives shape to the state?
Astropolitics: The Chinese spy balloon that caused such alarm in the USA in 2022 was an artifact from the astropolitical future. Planetary computation becomes Extraplanetary computation and back again. If geopolitics is now driven by the governance of model simulations then the seat of power is the view from anywhere.
Chip Race: The geopolitical architecture of the moment hinges on the relays from materials mining to the design of the machines that design the machines to the precarious perch on which less than a dozen companies hold together the self-replication of planetary computation. The next decade is dedicated to the replication of this replication supply chain itself, the race to build better stacks.
Foundational Models: The 2010s were filled with AI white papers declaring the technologies to be central to geopolitical ambition. It was declared a force for “competitive peace”. Now large foundational models, from GPT-4 to Tongyi Qianwen, are poised to upend and/or solidify these plans.
Cloud States: The modern State has always been an institution producing, modeling, storing, and deploying information, which is no less true in the age of cloud-and-client architectures. Indeed from Estonia’s e-residency to Chinese and American super-jurisdiction to various schemes for digital secession, the future of the State lies way beyond the territorial borders.
Institutional Futurism: Scenario planning has long been a favored technique of institutional futurism. Sometimes, it seeks to reduce ambiguity in decision-making, while in other cases it cultivates ambiguity in understanding possibilities and contingencies. Between the two is a hybrid genre that frames compelling near-future scenarios for Hemispherical Stacks.
About Scenario Fictions
Scenario fictions take up the legacies of scenario planning from think tanks and institutions, science fiction, and systems novels. Unlike scenario planning, Antikythera’s approach does not use scenarios to support anticipatory decision-making. Unlike most of today’s science fiction, which has long presented future technologies and their social impact, scenario fictions avoid protagonist-driven characterizations. Scenario fictions benefit from their focused brevity and provide a glimpse into the broader world they suggest. They are based on the following principles:
No Protagonists: System dynamics, not individual agents: Scenario fictions are short narratives that explore structural dynamics and cause-effect chains. They focus on large systems traversing technology, geopolitics, the economy, and institutions. Scenario fictions do not focus on the destinies of individual protagonists or dueling leaders and do not rely on readers' emotional identification with relatable characters.
Time: Analysing the present through its possible futures: Scenario fictions extrapolate into near future present-day geopolitical tensions or cutting-edge technological developments. However, their aim is not to offer predictions. Even if the futures they envision may be highly probable, their main virtue is in how they enable readers to capture counterintuitive aspects of the present.
Hybrid: Neither utopian nor dystopian: Scenario fictions are not futures you wish (or wish not) to happen. They do not invent unlikely technologies (Terminator-style AIs) or events (alien invasions). Instead, scenario fictions grapple with the real in all of its deep and absurd guises. If you are not sure whether you would want your scenario to come to pass, that is a good sign that it is interesting.
Style & Format: Quality over quantity: The shorter the scenario, the better. The ideal length is 500-600 words, maximally 750 words. Scenarios provide an overall situation and a glimpse into the implications. They start conversations rather than resolve events.
Geopolitics: Scenarios should grapple with a world changed by planetary computation. This means that the familiar institutions and conduits should become unfamiliar through scenarios as the potential impacts are explored. The technologies of statecraft change as a result of planetary computation: As a result, some states may dissolve, some states may get reshaped by the dynamics of markets, while in some cases, other formats - institutional or not - may take the place of the states. Make sure your scenario sets the reader up to see a cascading set of implications from the story you present.
One liner: The title and subtitle of your scenario should help readers understand the biggest idea, e.g. Eastphalia: Contingent Sovereignties.
Your Submission
Submissions are accepted on an ongoing basis and will be reviewed quarterly.
Scenarios must be between 500-750 words and must be accompanied by a compelling title, a one-line description of the scenario, and an author bio.
To be considered for inclusion in the next review round, please submit scenarios by March 30th. Please submit the scenario via our submission page as a .docx file, and name your file LastName_FirstName_Title.
A $150 honorarium is provided to writers for accepted submissions.
References
FICTION
DeLillo, Don. White Noise. New York: Viking Press, 1985
Kunzru, Hari. Transmission. New York: Penguin Books, 2005
Lee, Kai-Fu, and Quifan Chen. AI 2041. Ten Visions for Our Future. London: WH Allen, 2024
Lem, Stanislaw. His Master’s Voice. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983
Robinson, Kim Stanley. The Ministry for the Future. London: Orbit Books, 2020
THEORY
DeLeon, Peter. Scenario Designs: An Overview. Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 1973
Dellanoce, Leonardo, Amal Khalaf, Klaas Kuitenbrouwer, Nanjala Nyabola, Renée Roukens, Arthur Steiner, and Mi You (eds). Vertical Atlas. Arnhem: ArtEZ Press, 2022
Haqq-Misra, Jacob, George Profitiliotis, and Ravi Kopparapu. “Projections of Earth’s Technosphere. I. Scenario Modeling, Worldbuilding, and Overview of Remotely Detectable Technosignatures.” arXiv 2024
Konior, Bogna. The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet. Pittsburgh and New York: Flugschriften Press, 2020
Miller, Chris. Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology. New York: Scribner, 2022.
Elvia Wilk. Death by Landscape. New York: Soft Skull, 2022.
ART & DESIGN
Metahaven. DVD Zone 5 & Eurasia (Questions On Happiness). 2018-20
Theo Anthony. Subject to Review. 2019