Throughout this exhibition of the world’s technologies, a pattern shows that popular innovations for the information age are fueled by centralized colonial power which disenfranchises periphery communities within the  societies it operates and propagates. Coverage will go from the earliest forms of technology in the Western world to the modern era of the 19th – 21st century. Each section of the exhibit will explore the many aspects of how humans in the development of technology are utilized, or rather abused in what means in this case.

The first section investigates power disparities caused by the development of newfound technologies. As a result of national advantage, advancements in not only gathering information but also obfuscation was made important in many of the earliest voyages across the seas (Hellawell, 2020, p.29). This created biases in the information generated, mostly in service to an institution, which then enacts power over its influence by allowing certain information to be persistent, whilst other forms of information unimportant (Hellawell, 2020, pp. 30 -35). Its consequences can spread to national issues, such disputes over ideology and purpose in war situations, attempting to engage with their local populous with propaganda (Hallin, 1989).

Mental exploitation is not the only layer which dehumanizes the human input in technology, the next section refers to physical bodies that are also being exploited. Done for the benefit of the state and their technologies, they are more ephemeral than mechanical. Related technologies refer to preferred behaviors and traditions for a given population, allowing bodily autonomy to defer to state authorities (Bix, 1997). Worse still, it can even extend to bodily functions such as dietary intake in the pursuit of growth (Smith, 1865).

Finally, the last section covers erasure as a byproduct of hegemonic bias. As history is often cited as coming from which can pass on information over the course of multiple lifetimes (Light, 1999), much of technology’s origins stem from truths and half-truths. Either empowered by social norms, or because of political reasons, facts about the nature of constants in our modern world are compromised despite ubiquity (Hicks, 2017).

Especially as talks of Artificial Intelligence (AI) (Arjanto et al., 2023) and technological updates to social practices such as commerce like Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) or Cryptocurrencies (Badea & Mungiu-Pupazan, 2021), a keen eye on the human cost of these innovations should be considered. With political strife coming around the corner because of repeated revisionism from history (He et al., 2021), critical thinking with this context must be needed. This ensures not only the ability to weather these issues properly, but to also integrate technology in a manner that ensures its implementation is not abusive to other communities in all factors.

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