Computing Aliens
From Central Control to Migration Scenarios, 1960-1990
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- Authors: Moritz Mähr, Kijan Espahangizi
- Title: Computing Aliens: From Central Control to Migration Scenarios, 1960-1990
- In: Monika Dommann, Hannes Rickli, Max Stadler (eds.), Data Centers. Edges of a Wired Nation., Lars Müller Publishers, 2020, pp. 226-241
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DATA CENTERS
EDGES OF A WIRED NATION
Edited by Monika Dommann, Hannes Rickli, Max Stadler
Lars Müller Publishers
Data center construction site, Switzerland,
February 2019. (© Andrea Helbling)
p. 8 p. 29 p. 30 p. 45
Introduction On the Images Manno Lugano
Monika Dommann in This Book: A Superbrain for Visual Essay
Max Stadler Infrastructural Switzerland Andrea Helbling
Landscapes Giorgio Scherrer
and Procedures
Hannes Rickli
p. 70 p. 81
Gondo Gondo
White Gold, Crypto Visual Essay
Gold: Alpine Andrea Helbling
Hydropolitics
Monika Dommann
Max Stadler
p. 106 p. 117
How Clean Are Milchbuck
“Clean” Data Centers? Visual Essay
Renate Schubert Andrea Helbling
Scherwin Bajka
Fatih Öz
p. 138 p. 166 p. 182 p. 185
Zug A World Made of Ostermundigen Ostermundigen
Crypto Valley after Paper Ruins of Post-Industry: Visual Essay
Vitalik Buterin Emil Zopfi The Rise and Fall of Andrea Helbling
Monika Dommann ERZ / W
Max Stadler
p. 226 p. 242 p. 260 p. 262
Bern Delete Information: Long-term Storage Altdorf, Shanghai,
Computing Aliens: Sanitize, Shred, Andrés Villa-Torres Shenzhen, Liebefeld
From Central Control and Burn Manno
to Migration Scenarios, Sascha Deboni Swiss-Chinese
1960s–1980s Entanglements in
Moritz Mähr Digital Infrastructures
Kijan Espahangizi Lena Kaufmann
p. 290 p. 310 p. 321
Saanen Wait, My Data Goes Gais
The Data Bunker Where? Visual Essay
Is Not Just Anywhere Renate Schubert Andrea Helbling
Silvia Berger Ziauddin Ioana Marinica
| Fig. 1 |
226 Computing Aliens: From Central Control 227
to Migration Scenarios, 1960s–1980s
Bern In 1974, Switzerland’s first Central Aliens Register became fully operational.
With it, the Swiss Federal Administration had at its disposal not only an infor-
mation system that included personal data on its alien population, but also a
highly available electronic tool for data-driven immigration policy. In the
process, the data of more than one million foreigners was transferred fully
automatically from punch cards and magnetic tapes to the mainframe of the
Electronic Computing Center of the Federal Administration in Bern. Several
dozen elaborately programmed counting and sorting routines processed
these personal records, keeping the cutting-edge IBM System / 360 Model 65
busy; acquired in 1971, it needed several days to perform the calculations. The
Computing Aliens: result, however, was impressive: some 100 different types of statistical table,
From Central Control over 37,000 pages of charts and lists, as well as residence- and work-permit
to Migration Scenarios, quotas that the cantons were allowed to issue on a monthly basis.1
1960s–1980s Designed against the backdrop of the postwar eco-
nomic boom and a surging demand for foreign labor, the Central Aliens Regis-
ter embodied the aspiration of a powerful centralized nation-state. With almost
sixty employees and annual operating costs surpassing 2 million Swiss francs,
it was the most complex and expensive statistical tool of which the Federal
Administration had availed itself to date. Indeed, this enormous organization-
al and financial effort couldn’t be justified in terms of “rationalization”—that is,
Moritz Mähr accelerated admission procedures—alone. The Central Aliens Register was a
Kijan Espahangizi more ambitious project entirely: a beachhead of automation in the Federal
Administration; and as such, it was to stand paradigmatically for how ques-
tions of “government” might be modeled as a sociotechnical control system
utilizing the methods of operations research and cybernetics.2
The Central Aliens Register, a large-scale techno-
cratic project housed in a sizable computing center, contrasts sharply with the
population scenarios that would be drawn up by the Federal Statistical Office
only a decade later, in the 1980s. The new global challenges that became appar-
ent in the wake of the mid-1970s recession revealed the limitations of the
national cybernetic system metaphor. The Federal Statistical Office responded
to this new political reality and the concomitant uncertainties with innovative
approaches. Instead of overarching, hierarchical project structures, small teams
would now be deployed. The IBM mainframe computer gave way to a small Mitek
workstation. Data originating from different sources was to be systemically col-
lated and translated into scientifically verifiable hypotheses. As we shall see, the
demographic department of the Federal Statistical Office then developed a new,
future-oriented understanding of migration that shaped the reorganization of
Swiss state authorities (and the technical tools at their disposal) into the 2000s.3
1 2 3
Swiss Federal Archives E3325- On cybernetics, see, for example, no. 1 (June 6, 2017), pp. 81–92, Hans-Rudolf Wicker, “Migration,
02#2013/10#18*, E6502-01#1993/ Andrew Pickering, “Cyborg History https://www001.zimt.uni-siegen. Migrationspolitik und Migrations-
126#68*. and the World War II Regime,” Per de/ojs/index.php/mia/article/ forschung,” in Migration und die
spectives on Science 3, no. 1 (1995), view/6; David Gugerli, Wie die Welt Schweiz. Ergebnisse des Nationalen
pp. 1–48.; more broadly, see An- in den Computer kam. Zur Entsteh Forschungsprogramms “Migration
dreas Wimmer, and Nina Glick ung digitaler Wirklichkeit. Frankfurt und interkulturelle Beziehungen,”
Schiller, “Methodological National- am Main, 2018. edited by Hans-Rudolf Wicker, Rosita
ism and Beyond: Nation-State Buil Fibbi, and Werner Haug, Sozialer
ding, Migration and the Social Zusammenhalt und kultureller Plu-
Sciences,” Global Networks 2, no. 4 ralismus, Zurich, 2003, pp. 12–64.;
(October 2002), pp. 301–34; Guido Marcel Berlinghoff, Das Ende der
Koller, “The Central Register of For- “Gastarbeit”: Europäische Anwer
eigners: A Short History of Early bestopps 1970–1974. Paderborn,
Digitisation in the Swiss Federal 2013; André Holenstein, Patrick
Administration,” Media in Action, Kury, and Kristina Schulz,
Moritz Mähr 228 Computing Aliens: From Central Control 229
Kijan Espahangizi to Migration Scenarios, 1960s–1980s
In this chapter, we shall use the example of Switzer- its many international organizations). With public debates overheating and
land’s migration policy to explore how computers have reconfigured the admin- anti-immigration sentiments spreading, thousands of foreigners were literal-
istrative activities of the nation-state—and how, in turn, this has shaped the uses ly packing their bags. The Schwarzenbach Initiative failed by a narrow margin,
and materialities of computing within the administration. Part I will focus on but it was to have a lasting impact on the political landscape.5 From 1970, the
major administrative automation projects of the 1960s and 1970s and the ways federal authorities, for one, embarked on a policy of balancing economic and
through which they propelled a massive centralization of data, services, and nationalist-protectionist interests. Their plan, in other words, was to limit the
competencies. Part II then looks at the shift towards decentralized, situational influx of foreigners to a minimum without jeopardizing economic growth. In
uses of electronic data-processing tools in the 1980s and 1990s. We shall con- order to do so, however, the Federal Administration first needed a powerful
clude with an outlook on more recent developments concerning the “digitiza- statistical tool and reliable data. Indeed, the success of the policy would hinge
tion” of administration and its consequences for Switzerland’s migration policy. on the ability to register and precisely monitor the movement of foreign work-
ers into, and out of, different sectors and professions. On January 28, 1970, the
Centralized Control in the Era of the “Guest Worker” government decided to create the Central Aliens Register.6
In the three decades after World War II, the Swiss It didn’t come out of nowhere, of course. Notably,
economy experienced impressive growth, as is well known. Due to the lack of Max Holzer, head of the Federal Office for Industry, Trade and Labor, had rec-
a sufficient native labor supply, millions of foreign workers, mostly from Italy, ognized the importance of a new national immigration policy long before this.
then were drawn into the country, toiling in Swiss factories, on construction In 1961, he had appointed a Study Commission on the Issue of Foreign Labor.
sites, in agriculture, gastronomy, and so on. The Swiss Aliens Law, which had In order to curb growth and inflation, the commission’s 1964 report had pro-
come into force in the aftermath of the economic crisis in the 1930s, guaran- posed limiting immigration. At the time, this came as no surprise in view of the
teed the temporary stay of foreign workers. Its seasonal and annual permits restrictive measures vis-à-vis companies and cantons that the Swiss govern-
were the legal basis of what was called a principle of rotation: as in other ment (Federal Council) had already adopted on March 1, 1963 and February 21,
affluent European countries, foreigners were welcome to sell their manpow- 1964. The commission’s proposals, in particular those regarding nationwide
er, but not to settle down.4 restrictions on immigration, went somewhat further, however, aiming as they
By the 1960s, the gains of labor migration had helped did at the reorganization of competencies belonging to the Swiss Confedera-
to promote the emergence of a prosperous, middle-class consumer society in tion and the cantons, respectively. In addition, the commission called for the
Switzerland. Nevertheless, the rising number of foreign workers and a rising new policies to be put on a sound quantitative basis.
rate of inflation were beginning to revive xenophobic tendencies, with right- In the 1960s, to be sure, the Federal Administration
wing and trade union circles in particular reinforcing each other. The Swiss already had various statistical devices at its disposal that kept track of foreigners:
government initially ignored these concerns, continuing its pursuit of a liber- the business census, the factory statistics, the population census, the popu-
al admission policy in the interest of industry. Such passivity on the part of lation movement statistics, the statistical survey of the Federal Office of
authorities contributed to the fact that those who rallied against “Überfrem Industry, Trade and Labor, and the statistics of the Federal Aliens Police. How-
dung” (“overforeignization”) consistently gained ground in the second half of ever, these various measures were incomplete in many respects. No statistic
the 1960s. Only to avert all too rigorous limits on immigration did the Swiss covered the foreign labor force and the foreign resident population completely.
government then start to adjust its policy: admission quotas were introduced Foreign workers residing in neighboring countries, for instance, were missing
on the level of individual companies and branches of industry, accompanied from certain statistics, as were workers who had acquired the right to settle
by a policy of assimilation for those foreigners who were already living in the and were therefore exempt from the corresponding reporting obligations.
country. The first such national immigration quota was issued on March 16, Depending on the collating authority, data was collected from either munici-
1970, only months before the first referendum on “overforeignization” would pal residents’ registration offices, cantonal immigration police authorities,
be held. Known as the Schwarzenbach Initiative, it aimed at limiting the pro- companies, or directly from households. The survey intervals varied between
portion of resident foreigners to ten percent (per canton, except Geneva with semiannual and decennial. Such lack of comparability led to a number of partly
4 5 6
Schweizer Migrationsgeschichte: In addition, this flexible foreign work Damir Skenderovic, and Gianni Michael Mülli, “Kontingentierung
Von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart, force could be used as an economic D’Amato, eds. Mit dem Fremden von Migration. Zur Soziologie einer
Baden, 2018; Kijan Espahangizi, buffer in times of decreasing labor politisieren. Rechtspopulistische Regierungstechnik,” in Staatlichkeit
“The ‘Sociologic’ of Postmigration: demand. Jakob Tanner, Geschichte Parteien und Migrationspolitik in der Schweiz: Regieren und ver
A Study in the Early History of So- der Schweiz im 20. Jahrhundert, in der Schweiz seit den 1960er walten vor der neoliberalen Wende,
cial Research on Migration and Inte Munich, 2015, pp. 338–43. Jahren, Zurich, 2008. edited by Lucien Criblez, Christina
gration in Switzerland, 1960–73,” Rothen, and Thomas Ruoss, Zurich
in Switzerland and Migration. His- 2016, pp. 171–91.
torical and Current Perspectives
on a Changing Landscape, ed-
ited by Barbara Lüthi and Damir
Skenderovic, Cham, 2019,
pp. 33–59.
Moritz Mähr 230 Computing Aliens: From Central Control 231
Kijan Espahangizi to Migration Scenarios, 1960s–1980s
contradictory figures that were circulating within the Federal Administration high level of reliability and availability. New and partially automated processes
and also among the public regardless.7 linking up the federal government and the cantons were to guarantee the
In 1965, following the Study Commission’s report, the | Fig. 1 | smooth and uniform collection and permutation of data. The optimistic vision
Swiss government arranged for an internal task force to examine how more was that in the future a work permit would only be issued to migrant workers
reliable figures on foreigners could be technically implemented. This task force who could be properly integrated into the Swiss economy and civil society. In
was headed by the Central Office for Organizational Issues, represented by the line with this plan, the process of granting work and settlement permits would
Coordination Office for Automation, a branch that had been established in 1960. be implemented uniformly throughout Switzerland; the labor supply in turn
The Swiss government had entrusted this outfit not only with the supervision would be distributed evenly and fairly across all regions of Switzerland accord-
of its Bernese computing center, but with all automation projects underway ing to economic needs. For this reason, separate statistics had to be compiled
at the Federal Administration. Indeed, the Coordination Office, wielding the for each canton: How many foreigners stayed or settled in the canton in a cer-
military planning methods of operations research, then quickly emerged as tain year? How many of them were children, how many were adults? By how
the driving force behind rationalization efforts in the Federal Administration. many individuals had the population changed compared to the previous year?
Important players here included Otto Hongler, who was a teacher at the Insti- What were their home countries? How many foreigners with a residence per-
tute of Business Administration at ETH Zurich as well as the president of the mit were in employment? How many foreigners with a permanent residence
Swiss Society for Rational Administration and first head of the above-men- permit were employed? In which sectors were they employed? Which profes-
tioned Central Office for Organizational Issues; and Hans Kurt Oppliger, an sions, if any, did they exercise?
economist and former employee of the Bull computer company who was now This clearly was a daunting project. In order to win
the head of the Coordination Office for Automation. The idea that mathemati- over the cantons, these were promised financial compensation for each “reg-
cal constructs and formulae should be relevant to capturing and implementing istration or permutation report.” They were also assured that they would
such criteria as effectiveness and efficiency was new to an administration still receive statistical evaluations (on a monthly basis) and copies of the register
characterized by corporatism and militia structures.8 Their reports on “Im- (on a quarterly basis) so as to be able to compare their own data sets with that
provements in the Federal Council’s Governmental Activities and Administra- of the federal state. Nevertheless, both at the Federal Office for Trade, Indus-
tive Management” and on “The Status of Automatic Data Processing in the try and Labor and the cantonal offices, initial euphoria over the automation of
Federal Administration” were important milestones in this regard.9 statistics on foreigners quickly ebbed in view of the complex technicalities. In
Unsurprisingly, the task force came out in favor of data- order to meet deadlines, automated data transmission was dispensed with at
processing machinery when it came to immigration. Following this, Max Holzer many municipalities. The economically and numerically significant group of
had a commission of experts draw up concrete measures for a new data-driven foreign border migrants was not integrated into the system and continued to
admission policy. Two years later, in 1967, the final report stated that effective be collected manually. In the beginning, this led certain cantonal authorities,
management of immigration would only be possible if complete, accurate, and now slowly adapting their allocation practices to federal guidelines, to simply
regular statistics on aliens were available. In turn, a promising solution for eval- misuse the reporting forms. As a result, the projected annual operating costs,
uating such large amounts of data accurately and quickly (thus enabling said initially set at 1.5 million Swiss francs, had to be adjusted several times, creep-
data-driven policy) was, of course, the use of computer-generated statistics. The ing up to more than 2.3 million Swiss francs.
expert group on automation therefore took over all central design decisions from The computer forced its logic onto the authorities in
the task force led by the Central Office for Organizational Issues.10 other, unforeseen ways. Due to the high cost of computer and tape storage, for
example, personal records were kept as small as possible. Even the maximum
Consolidating Power around a Single Data Source possible length of foreigners’ names was limited. In order to write the most
The new statistics on foreigners were a prime exam- efficient search routines possible, a unique key had to be available for each
ple of automation in the administration of government, promising as it did the record. This key consisted of the surname, given name, date of birth, and a few
optimal control of the labor supply. Central data storage would guarantee a other fields. Cyrillic letters overtaxed the system, as did people who had no last
7 8 9 10
Matthias Hirt, Die Schweizerische Pius Bischofberger, Durchsetzung See Swiss Federal Archives E65- Swiss Federal Archives
Bundesverwaltung im Umgang mit und Fortbildung betriebswirtschaft- 02#1984/182#193*,E6502#1987/100 E6270B-01#1981/186#206*.
der Arbeitsmigration: Sozial-, kultur- licher Erkenntnisse in der öffent #45*. On the history of the emer-
und staatspolitische Aspekte von lichen Verwaltung. Ein Beitrag zur gence of the computing center in
1960 bis 1972, Saarbrücken, 2009; Verwaltungslehre, vol. 2, Winter- the context of the 1960 census, see
Hans Ulrich Jost, Von Zahlen, Politik thur, 1964. Nick Schwery, “Die Maschine re-
und Macht. Geschichte der schweiz gieren. Computer und eidgenössis-
erischen Statistik, Zurich, 2016. che Bundesverwaltung, 1958–1965,”
in Preprints zur Kulturgeschichte
der Technik, no. 29 (2018).
Moritz Mähr 232 Computing Aliens: From Central Control 233
Kijan Espahangizi to Migration Scenarios, 1960s–1980s
| Fig. 1 | “Permutation report,” Central Aliens Register. (Swiss Federal Archives E3321-01#1985/36#103*)
name or who did not know their date of birth. Changes to the field definitions
and the corresponding COBOL routines were time-consuming and often
affected the entire system. To limit the impact of these modifications, the com-
puting center introduced its own, very rigid and detailed project management
methodology, called HERMES, in 1976. This organizational measure made it
even more cumbersome for external stakeholders to make spontaneous
requests for changes. No more adjustments were made without project sub-
mission and preliminary analysis. As a result, the Central Aliens Register
isolated itself substantially from the cantons, basically operating as an auton-
omous unit within the Federal Administration.11
The Central Aliens Register, meanwhile, did not have
the kind of impact that planners had expected. With the introduction of national
immigration restrictions, the Swiss government had adopted a centralistic
national immigration scheme, the material manifestation of which came in the
form of a centralized database. Its adoption resulted in profound changes: the
admission procedures were now standardized throughout Switzerland; the fed-
eral government and its immigration authorities were given larger budgets and
more powers of control, intervention, and decision-making. Yet the Central Aliens
Register was unable to meet the actual goal of adapting the migratory flows to
the needs of the economy with its would-be fully automated quota system.
In the early 1970s, the number of foreign workers in
Switzerland continued to rise significantly despite the restrictions imposed
by the Federal Council. And when the Central Aliens Register finally went online
in 1974, the global recession led to a sharp drop in the demand for labor, and
well over 200,000 foreign workers and their families had to return to their home
countries. They acted as an economic buffer, in accordance with the traditional
principle of rotation, Switzerland being spared a rise in unemployment as a
result. The lack of unemployment insurance along with weak worker protec-
tion and high worker mobility, rather than cybernetic control of the Central
Aliens Register, had effectively “managed” the flow of migration.12
Moving from Real-Time Data to Scenario Analysis
After the recession, the postwar “problem of the for-
eign workers” thus lost part of its political urgency. Along with hundreds of thou-
sands of foreigners, unemployment had been “successfully” exported and the
structural transformation of the Swiss economy into a service economy was
underway. The end of the boom era brought changes to the social challenges
that would attract the attention and imagination of the public, as well as to the
scientific experts and actors within the Federal Administration. One of these
11 12
Analogous obstacles posed to the See also Jérôme Brugger, “At the
administration by technical logic Dawn of Swiss E-Government: Plan-
are also evident in Great Britain. See ning and Use of a Unique Identifier
Jon Agar, The Government Machine: in the Public Administration in the
A Revolutionary History of the 1970s,” Administration & Society 50,
Computer,Cambridge, MA, 2003. no. 9 (October 1, 2018), pp. 1319–34.
Migration policy in the 1970s was
significantly influenced by European
integration; see Thomas Gees, Die
Schweiz im Europäisierungsprozess.
Wirtschafts- und gesellschafts
politische Konzepte am Beispiel der
Arbeitsmigrations-, Agrar- und
Wissenschaftspolitik, 1947–1974,
Zurich, 2006.
Moritz Mähr 234 Computing Aliens: From Central Control 235
Kijan Espahangizi to Migration Scenarios, 1960s–1980s
| Fig.2 | System flowchart, 1978, Central Aliens Register. (Swiss Federal Archives E3325-02#2015/17#122*)
rising concerns—with regard to “the limits to growth”—was demography.13 In
fact, whereas fertility rates in developing countries were leading to exponen-
tial population growth and fanning fears of overpopulation, fertility had been in
decline in industrialized Western countries such as Switzerland since the mid-
1960s. In the following decade, the bump in the curve hardened into a more
disturbing trend. The Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics duly expressed
its unease with this demographic trend in a publication with the sensationalist
title Will the Swiss Die Out? 14 In the late 1970s, the combined effects of declin-
ing native fertility, an exponentially growing population in developing countries,
and the accompanying dynamics of global migration in a now decolonized world
amalgamated into a perception of a veritable demographic challenge to the
Swiss state. This required new approaches. In 1977, the Swiss parliament asked
the government to “lay the foundations for population policy” by creating a new
department of population statistics and demographic studies at the Federal
Statistical Office: this novel department would report back to parliament and
develop “proposals for the solution of the economic, social, cultural, and
economic problems that follow the demographic situation.” 15
The computerized Central Aliens Register, built in
the spirit of the Cold War “guest worker era,” was unable to offer answers to
these new demographic challenges—challenges that nevertheless were
increasingly related to immigration issues. Registering, counting, and allocat-
ing foreign individuals, calculating in- and outflux rates, was simply an insuffi-
cient basis for developing sustainable population policies. What was needed
now was a more innovative and exploratory approach, one that would allow the
modeling of national demographic developments in a broader global frame-
work. Both the rather rigid and nation-centric container model of the foreign-
worker era and its underlying cybernetic data infrastructure had to be
integrated into, and adapted to, the global environment of changing economic,
demographic, and migratory patterns.
A rather different paradigm of statistical data pro-
cessing would have to deal with these socioeconomic dynamics—even as, in
the aftermath of the boom era and the rather unexpected global economic
crisis, such complex dynamics appeared far less predictable than before, even
to experts. Traditional predictive modeling techniques had provided forecasts
based on mathematical extrapolation and well-defined probabilities; new and
more sophisticated tools would have to try to explore and describe the sys-
temic complexity of a fundamentally uncertain future. By the 1980s, the devel-
opment of “population scenario analysis” at the Federal Statistical Office
seemed to provide a way to do this, offering a more globally oriented, flexible,
13 14 15
Donella H. Meadows et al., Schweizerische Gesellschaft für 77.448 Postulat Morel. Bevölkerungs
The Limits to Growth: A Report Statistik und Volkswirtschaft politik, in Amtliches Bulletin der
for the Club of Rome’s Project (Kommission Bevölkerungspolitik), Bundesversammlung, 1978 Band I,
on the Predicament of Mankind, Sterben die Schweizer aus? Januarsession, Sitzung 06,
London, 1972. Die Bevölkerung der Schweiz: Nationalrat: pp. 158–59.
Probleme, Perspektiven,
Politik. Bern, 1985.
Moritz Mähr 236 Computing Aliens: From Central Control 237
Kijan Espahangizi to Migration Scenarios, 1960s–1980s
and exploratory approach to dealing with the demographic future of the Swiss Federal Statistical Office appreciated this kind of community service on the
nation-state. This new perspective, as we shall see, materialized not only in the part of I. P. Sharp—it allowed them to emancipate themselves from the pro-
general conceptual outlook and methodology of scenario analysis, but also in fessional computer engineers who still did the programming at the big cen-
more exploratory and decentralized forms of electronic data processing. tralized computing and data centers.19 For two Swiss francs per hour, data
from the Federal Statistical Office was sent to Canada for processing via
Flexible Machines, Multiple Data Sources Mitek terminals, telephone cables, and a front-end computer used to sched-
In 1979, the Swiss government took a first step to- ule the incoming tasks.
ward such a more integrated view of national demographics and immigra- In contrast to the personal data records stored in the
tion when the newly established demographics department of the Federal Central Aliens Register, which had to be kept in Switzerland, the transatlantic
Statistical Office was asked to develop an integrated statistical tool, as well transfer of aggregated (and therefore anonymous) demographic tables didn’t
as produce annual updates of total population movements in Switzerland, raise any concerns with regard to national data security. The trans-border
that is, of citizens and foreigners. The resulting ESPOP database (Statistique stream of data flowing back and forth between Bern and Toronto, as well as the
de l’état annuel de la population) drew from various data sources. The Cen- participation in a growing international user community, were symptomatic
tral Aliens Register provided valuable data on the foreign population, arriv- of the accelerating global reach of electronic information technologies at the
ing at the Federal Statistical Office on magnetic tapes. In view of migratory time—and of a new kind of mindset. The results of these transnational data cal-
movements of the native population (international and between the Swiss culations—a few kilobytes per year—were then stored again and backed up
communities, cantons, and regions), a new database had to be built from onto the magnetic discs of the Electronic Computing Center of the Federal
scratch. The geographer Hans Steffen, who had been hired as head of the Administration in Bern. The whole setup, indeed, was only barely reminiscent
ESPOP project, was responsible for gathering the necessary data and implemen of the omnipresent centralism that had determined the visions of migration
ting it in cooperation with the cantonal agencies and roughly 3,000 local policy just a few years earlier.
communities.16 In a next step, the accumulated data was aggregated in Shortly after the decennial national census of 1980,
comprehensive tables in the Electronic Computing Center of the Swiss ESPOP was up and running, ready to deliver annual data on natural population
Federal Administration, which at that time was located under the roof of the movements (deaths and births) as well as all migratory movements of what
Federal Statistical Office. would now be framed as the “permanent resident population” (a new notion
This in-house infrastructure, however, wasn’t suited that no longer focused on the legal distinction of citizenship).20 The implemen-
for running the customized computer programs that were necessary in order tation of ESPOP took place at a time when the Swiss government was more
to edit, integrate, and smoothen the data. Most importantly, it did not provide broadly reorganizing its knowledge production policies in response to the chal-
an APL environment—a programming language that had been developed by lenges of a shifting, uncertain global economy. In the aftermath of the crisis in
mathematicians in the 1960s that was geared toward statistical purposes. the mid-1970s, determining the status of the resident population was still im-
Failing such capacities, the ESPOP project instead used the time-sharing portant, of course, but it wasn’t the sole purpose of data processing. Various
system of an APL-based computing center in Toronto, operated by I. P. Sharp. decentralized data sources had to be processed flexibly, producing knowledge
Having started as a small consulting firm in 1964, I. P. Sharp had by the early about future developments that could guide long-term policy decisions and
1980s turned into a multinational APL time-sharing company with offices all inform the work of various departments within the Federal Administration,
over the world, including in Zurich. Its I. P. Sharp Newsletter served as an including on such questions as social security.
information platform for the growing international user community, show-
ing off APL applications, explaining code snippets, and announcing training Population Scenarios: Computing Uncertainty
courses.17 A series of “on line” (sic!) workshops held in Zurich in 1981, for In 1980, The Global 2000 Report to the President, a
instance, offered an introduction to APL programming as well as more comprehensive report by the US government on global environmental, socio
advanced immersion.18 The APL users at the demographic department of the economic, and demographic developments, was published and rapidly trans-
16 17 18 19 20
Thérèse Huissoud, Martin Schuler, See, for example, I. P. Sharp As The advertising for the courses was Interview with Hans Steffen by Kijan Huissoud 1996.
and Hans Steffen, Les migrations en sociates, I. P. Sharp Newsletter 10, attached to the newsletters as a Espahangizi in Bern, May 9, 2019.
Suisse entre 1981 et 1993: Une ana no. 1, Toronto, 1972. flyer. Ibid.
lyse des statistiques de l’état annuel
de la population et des migrations
(ESPOP). Bern, 1996, p. 8.
Moritz Mähr 238 Computing Aliens: From Central Control 239
Kijan Espahangizi to Migration Scenarios, 1960s–1980s
lated into numerous languages.21 The report, commissioned by US president tutions, including in Switzerland; its popularity surged especially after the
Jimmy Carter three years earlier, attracted wide interest. In 1982, the Swiss rather unexpected global recession of the mid-1970s had challenged clas-
parliament asked the government to consider the report’s implications, espe- sical predictive approaches. In order to design hypothesis-based scenarios,
cially in relation to its consequences for Switzerland.22 In 1983, against the a heterogeneous bundle of factors had to be considered, including but not
backdrop of a broad political want for improved analytical and orientational limited to knowledge and data on past developments: political targets and
knowledge in a dynamic, global context, the Swiss government passed a law other constraints, assumptions about the range of possibly relevant socio-
requiring the Federal Administration to produce “perspectival studies” (Per- logical, cultural, and economic developments and future events, and so on.28
spektivstudien) on a regular basis.23 The “perspectival staff” later put in charge In 1983, against the backdrop of the general diffusion of this methodology—
of these studies was to include employees of the Federal Chancellery, repre- scenario analysis had also been employed in the Global 2000 report—the
sentatives from the two main state-owned companies SBB (railway and public Swiss government commissioned perspectival studies that would include
transport) and PTT (post, telephone, and telegraph), the demography “population scenarios” to be realized by the demographic department of the
department of the Federal Statistical Office, and the St. Gallen Center for Federal Statistical Office.29
Futurology (St. Galler Zentrum für Zukunftsforschung, SGZZ). The private think Exploratory in nature, population scenario analysis
tank led by renowned (and notorious) economist Francesco Kneschaurek required an adequate technological environment: one providing access to the
would be running the macroeconomic part of the studies. necessary data and flexible enough to carry out the according simulations. The
Kneschaurek had been creating reports for the division of labor that had worked for the Central Aliens Register—statisticians
Swiss government since the late 1960s.24 These studies were still being con- on the one side, computer engineers / scientists doing the programming on
ducted under the impression of the postwar boom period, using traditional the other—clearly did not match the implied need for a “dialogue,” that is, the
prognostic techniques such as extrapolation and projection. When faced with back and forth communication and adaptive processes between scenario de-
criticism that questioned the value of this kind of futurology in the aftermath sign, statistical operationalization, and information technology. The statisti-
of the global economic crisis, however, the SGZZ notably began adjusting its cians at the Federal Statistical Office in charge of calculating the scenarios,
futurological methods. In its demographic study of 1978, the SGZZ already Hans Steffen and Erminio Baranzini, who had been trained as an economist,
made use of simulations using four variations of basic demographic parame- had to be able to work on the level of programming themselves.30
ters.25 But it wasn’t until the early 1980s that a new notion entered their vocab- A more user-oriented electronic infrastructure for
ulary and methodological tool kit: “scenario.” 26 statistical calculation purposes at the Federal Administration continued to be
The futurological method of “scenario analysis” lacking; yet by now, it was possible to draw and build upon the earlier experience
had, in fact, been developed by Hermann Kahn at the RAND corporation of the ESPOP project in the area of APL programming and the time-sharing ser-
against the backdrop of Cold War military logic of the 1950s and ’60s.27 In the vices of I. P. Sharp.31 At the time, the only facility within the Swiss state bureau-
ensuing decades, it increasingly found use in both private and public insti- cracy that provided this kind of working environment was the computing and
21 22 23 24 data center of the PTT, also in Bern (ERZ PTT).32 Indeed, PTT had previously
Gerald O. Barney, and Council on 82.461 Postulat Bäumlin, Bericht “HERMES Projektantrag Szenario, Francesco Kneschaurek, and
founded the Swiss APL User Group that provided advanced training and assist-
Environmental Quality, The Global “Global 2000,” June 24, 1982, February 9, 1984,” in Swiss Federal Terenzio Angelini, Entwicklungsper ed in building a community of users from different professional backgrounds
2000 Report to the President: Amtliches Bulletin der Bundes Archives E1010C#2009/102#89*. spektiven der schweizerischen
Entering the Twenty-First Century. 3 versammlung V/Winter (1982), Volkswirtschaft bis zum Jahre 2000, (state agencies, banks, insurance companies) who shared codes and practical
vols. Washington, DC, 1980. pp. 1789–99. St. Gallen, 1974, pp. 1–11. knowledge. Offering both flexible time-sharing technology and a user-oriented
APL programming environment, it was well-suited to running the statistical sim-
ulation of the perspectival study there.33 The fact that the PTT was already rep-
resented on the perspectival staff further facilitated the cooperation. In addition,
all the necessary datasets for the demographic scenario, most importantly the
ESPOP database, had already been transferred to its computer center.
25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Francesco Kneschaurek, Entwick See Francesco Kneschaurek, Patrick Kupper, “Szenarien. Genese Elke Seefried, Zukünfte: Aufstieg The demography department at the du programme de l’ONU,” 1980, Owing to Hans Steffen, his colleague Interview with Hans Steffen in Bern,
lungsperspektiven der schwei- Das richtige Zukunftsbild, St. Gallen, und Wirkung eines Verfahrens der und Krise der Zukunftsforschung Federal Statistical Office produced Swiss Federal Archives E3321# Erminio Baranzini—an economist May 9, 2019.
zerischen Volkswirtschaft. Teil 1. 1982, p. 18; see also pp. 26–29. Zukunftsbestimmung,” in Die Krise 1945–1980, Berlin, 2015. a first “scenario”-based population 1998/304#26*. with some earlier expertise in scena
Demographische Perspektiven, der Zukunft I. Apokalyptische Dis study in 1980, for a UN project. In this rio analysis—was in charge of the
2 vols., Entwicklungsperspektiven kurse in interdisziplinärer Diskus study, conducted at a time when im- elaboration of the scenarios. Inter-
der Schweizerischen Volkswirt sion, edited by Georg Pfleiderer migration numbers in Switzerland view with Hans Steffen in Bern,
schaft, St. Gallen, 1978. and Harald Matern, Baden-Baden, were still decreasing, migration was May 9, 2019.
2020, pp. 126–81. not considered to be a relevant
demographic factor. The computer-
generated tables in the printouts
of the study noted only briefly: “mi
grations not assumed.” Jean-Emile
Neury, and Hans Steffen, “Scénar-
ios d’évolution de la population rési-
dente 1980–2040, préparés à l’aide
Moritz Mähr 240 Computing Aliens: From Central Control 241
Kijan Espahangizi to Migration Scenarios, 1960s–1980s
The first perspectival demographic study of the Fed- to cross the borders of national discourse and become an important currency
eral Statistical Office was published in 1985. It focused on the development of of international politics.
fertility rates in Switzerland between 1985 and 2025. The second study, which Beginning with the population scenarios of the Fed-
was carried out in fall 1986 and published in 1987, changed the focus and em- eral Statistical Office in the 1980s, the immigrant population began to play a
phasized the effect of global migration on Swiss population growth. In 1986/87, constitutive role in Swiss demography, albeit at first only in the form of a com-
the perspectival staff agreed to work with three hypotheses on future migra- puter-based model, linking the future of the resident population with global
tion proposed by the Federal Statistical Office team, and to elaborate on the demographic developments. In the following decades, this new approach
following scenarios. The first of these, a scenario of “stabilization” (2A-86), pro- would shape not only the analyses and statistics, but also the policies and
ceeded from the mindset of cybernetic equilibration and the associated institutions of the Federal Administration. Since the late 1980s, a notion of
policies that had been established before the global economic crisis of the integrated migration policy had emerged—departing from global scenarios—
mid-1970s in the context of the heated debates on foreign workers. It set a tar- overshadowing, absorbing, and reconfiguring the established postwar appa-
get of a stable percentage of foreigners in the resident population. The second ratus of foreign worker admission policy.36 This development was reflected
scenario, “closed Switzerland” (2B-86), started from the rather unrealistic not only in the total revision of the Aliens Act from the 1930s around the turn of
assumption of net zero immigration. The third scenario, “increased immigra- the millennium and the institutional reorganization of the migration authori-
tion” (2C-86), meanwhile, explored the effects of a new, externally induced ties, but also in the implementation of a new migration information system by
global “migration pressure.” 34 The Swiss government, keen to avoid conflict, 2008. The Central Migration Information System CEMIS integrated not only
followed established policy in choosing its preferred scenario: “stabilization.” the erstwhile Central Aliens Register, but also several, hitherto distributed mi-
In spite of this ostensible continuity, however, the practice of producing pop- gration databases, into a comprehensive but flexible system with over 11 mil-
ulation scenarios soon became routine within the Federal Administration. lion individual entries which is also embedded in an international network of
migration data systems. The multiple historical pathways since the 1960s that
Toward an Integrated Information System led to the Swiss CEMIS highlight the fact that electronic data infrastructures
With the implementation of the Central Aliens Reg- are more than mere tools of migration governance. Increasingly, they are
ister in the 1970s, the foreign population entered, if you will, the computing shaping the ways in which state authorities, as well as other societal actors,
centers of the Swiss Federal Administration. In the spirit of cybernetics perceive and understand social phenomena of migration; they are shaping pol-
and operations research, migration policy was modeled as a system and icies, social interactions, and even visions of the future.
foreigners as data points; their influx had to be regulated on the input side in
Acknowledgments We would like to thank Fabian Grütter and the editors for their critical remarks.
order to produce the right labor supply on the output side. Although this vi-
sion soon faded away, increasingly powerful computers, rationalization, and
practices of statistical / numerical control became an integral part of a newly
emergent administrative culture.35 The recession of the 1970s affected not
only the nascent post-industrial society’s belief in growth, but also the plan-
ning security of the nation-state. Economic and political uncertainties were
tackled using new technologies, scientific approaches, and studies involv-
ing more distant horizons. Seen this way, the movement from heavily cen-
tralized to distributed forms of “computing” aliens did more than just follow
the technical development from large mainframes to smaller workstations;
it was itself a product of newly integrated migration and population policies
that were increasingly globalized and temporalized in orientation. Data on
and analyses of migration flows and population developments had begun
32 33 34 35 36
Daniela Zetti, “Die Erschliessung On the historical shift to user Werner Haug, “Ausblick auf die On the monitoring culture, see Kijan Espahangizi, and Moritz Mähr,
der Rechenanlage. Computer orientation, see Gugerli 2018. Zukunft der schweizerischen David Gugerli, and Hannes Mangold, “The Making of a Swiss Migration
im Postcheckdienst, 1964–1974,” in Bevölkerung: Bevölkerungspers- “Betriebssysteme und Computer- Regime. Electronic Data Infrastruc-
Gesteuerte Gesellschaft – Orienter pektiven 1986–2025.” Schweize fahndung. Zur Genese einer digitalen tures and Statistics in the Federal
la société, edited by Gisela Hürlimann, rische Zeitschrift für Volkswirtschaft Überwachungskultur,” Geschichte Administration, 1960s–1990s,”
Daniela Zetti, and Frédéric Joye- und Statistik 124, no. 2 (1988), p. 201. und Gesellschaft. Zeitschrift für Journal of Migration History (2020,
Cagnard, traverse 2009/3, 2009, Historische Sozialwissenschaft 42, in print).
pp. 88–101. no. 1 (2016), pp. 144–76; Lucas
Federer, “Aktiv fichiert,” in Archive
des Aktivismus: Schweizer Trotz
kist-*innen im Kalten Krieg, edited
by Lucas Federer, Gleb J. Albert,
and Monika Dommann, C1–C18.
Æther 2. Zurich, 2018, https://
aether.ethz.ch/ausgabe/archive-
des-aktivismus/
Author biographies 340 341
Scherwin M. Bajka is a research associate and doctoral candidate at the University of St. Gallen Marc Latzel was born in 1966 and lives and works in Zurich. His works are published inter-
(GOVPET Leading House). He received his master’s degree in political nationally. After earning a Matura Type B in Zurich in 1986, he studied pho-
science from the University of Zurich in 2019. Throughout his studies, he spe- tography at the Ecole des Arts Appliqués in Vevey from 1989 to 1993. From
cialized in the fields of international political economy and statistics while 2000 to 2005 he was a member of the Lookat Photos agency, and from 2004
working as an intern for the statistics unit of the Swiss National Bank and as to 2009 a founding member of the lookatonline.com agency. Since 2008 he
a research assistant at the Collegium Helveticum (ETH Zurich) and the Immi- has led workshops at the Centre d’Enseignement Professionnel in Vevey
gration Policy Lab (ETH Zurich & Stanford University). He is particularly (CEPV), from 2006 to 2008 at the Ecole Cantonale d’Art de Lausanne (ECAL),
interested in the effects of globalization, digitization, and migration on labor and since 2009 at the Swiss Media Training Centre (MAZ), Lucerne. Since
market integration as well as in the interrelationship between education and 1995 his career has produced numerous exhibitions and awards. In 2011 he
political behavior. held a scholarship from the Landis & Gyr Cultural Foundation in London, and
in 2015 he was honored in the context of the European Architectural Pho-
Silvia Berger Ziauddin teaches as an assistant professor of history at the University of Bern. In August tography Prize. He has been part of the 13photo photo agency in Zurich since
2020 she will assume the chair of Swiss and Contemporary History at the Uni- 2015 and head of the F+F specialist photography class since 2020.
versity of Bern. She has researched and taught at the University of Zurich,
the Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, the Max Planck Institute for the Moritz Mähr is a research assistant at the Chair of the History of Technology at ETH Zurich
History of Science in Berlin, the University of Basel, and Columbia University and at the Collegium Helveticum. He studied history and the philosophy of
in New York City. In 2019, she finished the manuscript of her second book, knowledge, computer science, and banking and finance in Zurich and Berlin.
entitled Überlebenszelle, Territorium, Bordell. Bunker|Schweiz im nuklea- He is currently working on a dissertation on the history of information pri-
ren Zeitalter. Her research interests include the transnational history of vacy and on the digitization of the migration authorities in Switzerland. This
Switzerland in the Cold War, the historical anthropology of gendered spaces study is part of the SNF-funded “Trading Zones” project. His research inter-
and emotions, the history of knowledge, the underground, vertical per ests include computer history, migration studies, and digital history. He is an
spectives, mobilities and resources (nineteenth – twenty-first century), the advocate of open access and open source.
history of civil defense, and the history of epidemics in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries. Ioana Marinica is a scientific collaborator at the Collegium Helveticum. She holds a master’s
degree in comparative and international studies from ETH Zurich and the
Sascha Deboni has been a student assistant at the Collegium Helveticum since 2018. He is University of Zurich. In her previous affiliation with the National University
currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in general history at the University of Political Studies and Public Administration in Bucharest, she was involved
of Zurich. His research interests include the history of right-wing movements in research projects on electoral behavior and contributed to the first
and political think tanks. With his minor in computer science, he is interested Romanian edition of a behavioral economics handbook. Most recently, Ioana
in the technical as well as social aspects of digital and interconnected data Marinica conducted large-scale experimental and survey-based analyses
and its infrastructure. of privacy concerns and privacy behavior. She is particularly interested in
the privacy implications of human-technology interaction.
Monika Dommann is a professor of modern history at the University of Zurich. She has researched
and taught at the International Center for Cultural Technology Research and Fatih Öz is a risk analyst at the Swiss National Bank and a co-lecturer on commodity trad-
Media Philosophy (IKKM) in Weimar, the German Historical Institute (GHI) in ing at the University of Zurich. He received his bachelor’s degree in banking and
Washington, the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, and finance from the University of Zurich. He contributed to Prof. Schubert’s
elsewhere. Topics in Dommann’s research and teaching are the intertwining fellowship project “Who Owns Data? The Possibilities and Implications of
of the Old and New Worlds (especially Europe, North America, and the Carib- Enforceable Property Rights” at Collegium Helveticum. Currently, Fatih Öz is
bean); media, economic, and legal history; the history of knowledge and finalizing his master’s thesis in banking and finance/quantitative finance at the
science; and the methods of historical science. Her particular focus is on the University of Zurich. His main interests are economics and technology.
history of material cultures, immaterial goods, logistics, and data centers.
Hannes Rickli is a visual artist who has held a professorship at the Zurich University of the
Kijan Espahangizi is a historian and scientific coordinator at the Center for the History of Know Arts since 2004. Born in Bern in 1959, Rickli studied photography, the theory
ledge (ETH & University of Zurich). He studied physics and history at the of art and design, and media art in Zurich and Karlsruhe. From 1988 to 1994,
University of Cologne (Germany) and the University of Seville (Spain). He he was a freelance photographer for various newspapers and magazines.
received a Ph.D. in history of science and technology from the ETH Zurich in Since 1991, he has staged visual art exhibitions in Switzerland and abroad. In
2011. He teaches at the History Department of the University of Zurich. His 2004, the Swiss Federal Office for Culture awarded him the Meret Oppenheim
recent research has been on the history of the concepts of migration and Prize. His teaching and research focus is on the instrumental use ofmedia
integration after World War II, with a focus on knowledge production. He has and space as well as media ecology. His research project “Computer Signals:
been a member of the German Council on Migration since 2015 and hascol- Art and Biology in the Era of Digital Experimentation,” 2012–2015 and
laborated with the IMISCOE Standing Committee on Reflexivities in Migra- 2017–2021, was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF).
tion Studies since 2019. He is also cofounder of an independent “post-migrant
think & act tank” called Institute New Switzerland (INES). Giorgio Scherrer is a graduate student of contemporary history and political science at the
University of Zurich. His interests include the history and political economy
Andrea Helbling is a photographer who specializes in architecture. She does photography for of higher education as well as global and media history. He was a research
architectural offices, magazines, and the public sector in the field of building assistant on the “Digital Infrastructures” project at Collegium Helveticum
construction and civil engineering. Her images are published in books, trade (ETH Zurich, University of Zurich, University of the Arts Zurich) from 2017 to
journals, and magazines. Helbling is also a freelance architectural photogra- 2018. He also works in the newsroom of Swiss Radio and Television (SRF) and
pher who pursues her own independent photographic projects under the as a freelance journalist.
name Arazebra. In 2017, the monograph Representatives of the House, which
included images from her long-term “Houses and Conglomerates” project, Renate Schubert is a professor of economics at ETH Zurich and a principal investigator at the
was published by Scheidegger & Spiess. She is represented by these images Singapore ETH Center (SEC) in Singapore. She did her doctoral dissertation
in the collection of Fotostiftung Schweiz. Also in 2017, she received the Swiss at the University of Tübingen and her habilitation at the Technical University
Photo Award in the category of architectural photography. She completed her of Darmstadt. For many years, she was a jury member at the Swiss and Ger-
training as a photographer at the Schule für Gestaltung Zürich (now Zurich man National Science Foundations. Furthermore, she headed several gov-
University of the Arts) in the specialist class for photography from 1987 to 1991. ernmental advisory committees, including the German Advisory Council on
Global Change (WBGU). Renate Schubert’s research focus is on behavioral
Lena Kaufmann is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of History and an associate economics as applied to environmental and energy-related topics. In addi-
lecturer at the Department of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies tion, she has been investigating social resilience as well as data privacy is-
(ISEK), both at the University of Zurich. She studied social anthropology and sues and the value of data. Her data-related work has essentially been done
China studies in Berlin, Rome, and Shanghai, before obtaining her Ph.D. in an- at the Collegium Helveticum in Zurich, where she has been a fellow since 2016.
thropology in Zurich. She has been a consultant in Sino-German develop-
ment cooperation and a research and teaching assistant at the University of
Zurich’s Ethnographic Museum. Lena Kaufmann has spent nearly four years
in the People’s Republic of China and is a founding member and deputy
speaker of the German Anthropological Association’s China working group.
Regionally, her research focuses on both mainland and transnational China.
Thematically, she engages with the anthropology of technology, work, digi-
tal infrastructures, and migration.
Author biographies 342
Max Stadler is a postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zurich (Science Studies and Collegium
Helveticum). His Ph.D. was in the history of science, technology, and medicine
from CHoSTM, Imperial College, London. Prior to coming to ETH, he was a pre-
and post-doctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science;
more recently, he co-directed the research project “Augenarbeit – Visual Per-
formance and Visual Design” at Eikones, NCCR Bildkritik, and cofounded
intercom Verlag, Zurich, an academic publishing collective. His research in-
terests center on the history of high tech, labor, and the human sciences.
Andrés Villa Torres is a Mexican artist and designer active internationally since 2010 in the fields
of new media and computer and algorithmic arts. As a solo practitioner and
with the Labor 5020 art collective, he explores issues of politics, society, phi-
losophy, media, and technology through artistic practice and research. He
works mostly with algorithms, computational processes, data, networks,
public space, sound, light, live coding, and the Web. Currently he is part of the
scientific staff of the Interaction Design Research Group at the Zurich Uni-
versity of the Arts. He is writing his dissertation on algorithmic agency and
social machines at the Graduate School of the Arts and Humanities at the Uni-
versity of Bern.
Emil Zopfi is a writer based in Zurich. He has published several novels, nonfiction books,
children’s books, radio plays, short stories, and articles for magazines and
newspapers. His works have earned him several awards, including from the
city and canton of Zurich, a cultural award from the canton of Glarus, another
from the Swiss Alpine Club, the King Albert II mountain award, the Landis &
Gyr Foundation, and a Swiss award for children’s books. His first profession
was electronic and computer engineering. He earned his degree from the
Department of Electrical Engineering and Control Systems at Technikum
Winterthur, now the ZHAW School of Engineering, in 1967. He was a research
assistant at the Laboratory for Physical Chemistry, ETH Zurich, then a sys-
tems engineer and programmer for Siemens Germany, Siemens-Albis
Zurich, and IBM Switzerland. His first novel, Jede Minute kostet 33 Franken,
was published in 1977. Outside of his freelance writing, he has been an adult
educator in computer science and creative writing. www.zopfi.ch
Imprint344
DATA CENTERS
EDGES OF A WIRED NATION
Editors Monika Dommann, Hannes Rickli, Max Stadler
Authors Scherwin Bajka, Silvia Berger Ziauddin, Sascha Deboni, Monika Dommann,
Kijan Espahangizi, Lena Kaufmann, Moritz Mähr, Ioana Marinica,
Fatih Öz, Giorgio Scherrer, Renate Schubert, Max Stadler, Andrés Villa-Torres,
Emil Zopfi
Project Coordination Christian Ritter
Assistance Sascha Deboni, Ann-Kathrin Eickhoff, Olivier Keller, Giorgio Scherrer,
Andrés Villa-Torres
Editorial assistance Martin Schmid
Translations and copyediting Mike Pilewski
Coordination (publisher) Maya Rüegg
Proofreading Stephanie Shellabear
Photography Andrea Helbling, Marc Latzel
Digital Image Editing (Helbling) Regula Müdespacher
Design Hubertus Design (Jonas Voegeli, Kerstin Landis, Lea Fischlin, Felix Plate)
Production Martina Mullis
Lithography, printing and binding DZA Druckerei zu Altenburg, Germany
Paper Magno Star, Holmen Trend 2.0
Typeface Monument Grotesk (Kasper-Florio, Dinamo)
DATA CENTERS. Edges of a Wired Nation was created as part of the
fellowship period “Digital Societies” (2016–2020) at Collegium Helveticum,
the joint institute for advanced studies at the University of Zurich,
ETH Zurich and the Zurich University of the Arts. www.collegium.ethz.ch
© 2020 Lars Müller Publishers and Collegium Helveticum
Photography
© Andrea Helbling (pp. 7–28, 45–56, 81–92, 117–128, 185–196, 321–332)
© Historisches Museum Olten, Photographer: Roland Schneider (pp. 168–180)
© Marc Latzel (pp. 244–283)
© Yann Mingard (pp. 299–307)
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or manner
whatsoever without prior written permission, except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Lars Müller Publishers is supported by the Swiss Federal Office of Culture
with a structural contribution for the years 2016–2020.
Lars Müller Publishers
Zurich, Switzerland
www.lars-mueller-publishers.com
ISBN 978-3-03778-645-1
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