Contemporary artificial intelligence and algorithmic processes address deep-seated existential ch... more Contemporary artificial intelligence and algorithmic processes address deep-seated existential challenges and modes of desire. In so doing, they produce computational systems of imagination, an “algorithmic as if” that enables the expression, transformation, and seeming overcoming of existential limitations via technological means. This article elaborates the character of the “algorithmic as if” by focusing on Deep Nostalgia, an online tool that turns personal photographs of the deceased into looped animations which smile, blink, and move, promising to overcome mortality by technologically “resurrecting the dead.” Performing a close-reading of Deep Nostalgia’s technological processes and the public discourse around its 2021 launch, the article highlights its combination of computational learning, forms of visual representation (photography, video, and animation), and distinctive realignments of temporal experience. Together, these frame the “algorithmic as if” as a magical and affec...
In April 2020 Historic England (HE), UK’s statutory adviser on historic environment, called out t... more In April 2020 Historic England (HE), UK’s statutory adviser on historic environment, called out to citizens to share their lockdown experiences. Positioning the Second World War as a reference point, the call-out created a parallel in the enormity of the crisis and archiving efforts. Using the Picturing Lockdown collection as a case study, we ask: how is a historical event in-the-making memorialized and archived, and what is the relationship between past and present memory initiatives?
Combining visual and textual analysis with in-depth interviews, this research compared the HE’s official Picturing Lockdown collection, the Instagram collection via #PicturingLockdown, and the HE National Buildings Record in the Second World War. Findings demonstrate a shift in memory dynamics. First, agents of memory are no longer only political and institutional actors, but also the public at large, introducing new possibilities for publics to assume the power of collective story-telling. Second, social media presents novel ways of archiving, specifically from a representation of the past to documentation of the present. The combination of COVID-19, a worldwide crisis that transcends cultural specificities and space, set in an age of social media, wherein any individual can contribute to archiving practices, shapes and creates new ways of memorialization.
Contemporary artificial intelligence and algorithmic processes address deep-seated existential ch... more Contemporary artificial intelligence and algorithmic processes address deep-seated existential challenges and modes of desire. In so doing, they produce computational systems of imagination, an "algorithmic as if" that enables the expression, transformation, and seeming overcoming of existential limitations via technological means. This article elaborates the character of the "algorithmic as if" by focusing on Deep Nostalgia, an online tool that turns personal photographs of the deceased into looped animations which smile, blink, and move, promising to overcome mortality by technologically "resurrecting the dead." Performing a close-reading of Deep Nostalgia's technological processes and the public discourse around its 2021 launch, the article highlights its combination of computational learning, forms of visual representation (photography, video, and animation), and distinctive realignments of temporal experience. Together, these frame the "algorithmic as if" as a magical and affective space for realizing impossible longings that are also reflexive encounters with the "limit-situation" of human mortality.
Contemporary artificial intelligence and algorithmic processes address deep-seated existential ch... more Contemporary artificial intelligence and algorithmic processes address deep-seated existential challenges and modes of desire. In so doing, they produce computational systems of imagination, an "algorithmic as if" that enables the expression, transformation, and seeming overcoming of existential limitations via technological means. This article elaborates the character of the "algorithmic as if" by focusing on Deep Nostalgia, an online tool that turns personal photographs of the deceased into looped animations which smile, blink, and move, promising to overcome mortality by technologically "resurrecting the dead." Performing a close-reading of Deep Nostalgia's technological processes and the public discourse around its 2021 launch, the article highlights its combination of computational learning, forms of visual representation (photography, video, and animation), and distinctive realignments of temporal experience. Together, these frame the "algorithmic as if" as a magical and affective space for realizing impossible longings that are also reflexive encounters with the "limit-situation" of human mortality.
Contemporary artificial intelligence and algorithmic processes address deep-seated existential ch... more Contemporary artificial intelligence and algorithmic processes address deep-seated existential challenges and modes of desire. In so doing, they produce computational systems of imagination, an "algorithmic as if" that enables the expression, transformation, and seeming overcoming of existential limitations via technological means. This article elaborates the character of the "algorithmic as if" by focusing on Deep Nostalgia, an online tool that turns personal photographs of the deceased into looped animations which smile, blink, and move, promising to overcome mortality by technologically "resurrecting the dead." Performing a close-reading of Deep Nostalgia's technological processes and the public discourse around its 2021 launch, the article highlights its combination of computational learning, forms of visual representation (photography, video, and animation), and distinctive realignments of temporal experience. Together, these frame the "algorithmic as if" as a magical and affective space for realizing impossible longings that are also reflexive encounters with the "limit-situation" of human mortality.
Worldwide, pubic memory initiatives are attempting to memorialize the current COVID-19 crisis whi... more Worldwide, pubic memory initiatives are attempting to memorialize the current COVID-19 crisis whilst it is still ongoing. The Picturing Lockdown collection is one such initiative, led by Historic England (HE), the UK’s statutory adviser on historic environment. Calling out to the public to submit photographed experiences of lockdown to both its website and via social media, HE recruited the public to partake in a national memory-making endeavor. To examine memorialization practices of the present, this research asks: in an era of social media, how is an archive of an ongoing crisis represented? Using a qualitative method for visual and textual analysis, this research compares the official HE Picturing Lockdown archive collection and #PicturingLockdown on Instagram. Analysis reveals tensions in three spheres: the institutional, the temporal, and the spatial. Demonstrating the dynamism and “presentism” introduced by social media, this research illustrates how traditional practices of ...
Worldwide, pubic memory initiatives are attempting to memorialize the current COVID-19 crisis whi... more Worldwide, pubic memory initiatives are attempting to memorialize the current COVID-19 crisis whilst it is still ongoing. The Picturing Lockdown collection is one such initiative, led by Historic England (HE), the UK’s statutory adviser on historic environment. Calling out to the public to submit photographed experiences of lockdown to both its website and via social media, HE recruited the public to partake in a national memory-making endeavor. To examine memorialization practices of the present, this research asks: in an era of social media, how is an archive of an ongoing crisis represented? Using a qualitative method for visual and textual analysis, this research compares the official HE Picturing Lockdown archive collection and #PicturingLockdown on Instagram. Analysis reveals tensions in three spheres: the institutional, the temporal, and the spatial. Demonstrating the dynamism and “presentism” introduced by social media, this research illustrates how traditional practices of ...
Worldwide, pubic memory initiatives are attempting to memorialize the current COVID-19 crisis whi... more Worldwide, pubic memory initiatives are attempting to memorialize the current COVID-19 crisis whilst it is still ongoing. The Picturing Lockdown collection is one such initiative, led by Historic England (HE), the UK's statutory adviser on historic environment. Calling out to the public to submit photographed experiences of lockdown to both its website and via social media, HE recruited the public to partake in a national memorymaking endeavor. To examine memorialization practices of the present, this research asks: in an era of social media, how is an archive of an ongoing crisis represented? Using a qualitative method for visual and textual analysis, this research compares the official HE Picturing Lockdown archive collection and #PicturingLockdown on Instagram. Analysis reveals tensions in three spheres: the institutional, the temporal, and the spatial. Demonstrating the dynamism and "presentism" introduced by social media, this research illustrates how traditional practices of commemoration are shifting.
This paper examines potential changes in the temporal experience of everyday digital media throug... more This paper examines potential changes in the temporal experience of everyday digital media through the smartphone photo album. Smartphone photo albums not only organize and display domestic photographs but also initiate temporally novel photographic formats: for instance, the images taken by users can be used as raw material in the production of new kinds of ‘moving’ or ‘animated’ photographic products, usually formatted as GIF files and characterized by looped time. While the character of these products and the processes of their creation vary across operating systems, both Google’s and Apple’s systems radically disrupt the conventional assumptions of photography theory regarding photography’s relations with time. Pre-digital photography theory postulated a key distinction between a photograph and a movie or video: the photograph is static; the movie is characterized by temporal progression. In contrast, the GIF presents a shift from linear temporality to looped, cyclical time, pro...
This paper examines potential changes in the temporal experience of everyday digital media throug... more This paper examines potential changes in the temporal experience of everyday digital media through the smartphone photo album. Smartphone photo albums not only organize and display domestic photographs but also initiate temporally novel photographic formats: for instance, the images taken by users can be used as raw material in the production of new kinds of ‘moving’ or ‘animated’ photographic products, usually formatted as GIF files and characterized by looped time. While the character of these products and the processes of their creation vary across operating systems, both Google’s and Apple’s systems radically disrupt the conventional assumptions of photography theory regarding photography’s relations with time. Pre-digital photography theory postulated a key distinction between a photograph and a movie or video: the photograph is static; the movie is characterized by temporal progression. In contrast, the GIF presents a shift from linear temporality to looped, cyclical time, pro...
Contemporary artificial intelligence and algorithmic processes address deep-seated existential ch... more Contemporary artificial intelligence and algorithmic processes address deep-seated existential challenges and modes of desire. In so doing, they produce computational systems of imagination, an “algorithmic as if” that enables the expression, transformation, and seeming overcoming of existential limitations via technological means. This article elaborates the character of the “algorithmic as if” by focusing on Deep Nostalgia, an online tool that turns personal photographs of the deceased into looped animations which smile, blink, and move, promising to overcome mortality by technologically “resurrecting the dead.” Performing a close-reading of Deep Nostalgia’s technological processes and the public discourse around its 2021 launch, the article highlights its combination of computational learning, forms of visual representation (photography, video, and animation), and distinctive realignments of temporal experience. Together, these frame the “algorithmic as if” as a magical and affec...
In April 2020 Historic England (HE), UK’s statutory adviser on historic environment, called out t... more In April 2020 Historic England (HE), UK’s statutory adviser on historic environment, called out to citizens to share their lockdown experiences. Positioning the Second World War as a reference point, the call-out created a parallel in the enormity of the crisis and archiving efforts. Using the Picturing Lockdown collection as a case study, we ask: how is a historical event in-the-making memorialized and archived, and what is the relationship between past and present memory initiatives?
Combining visual and textual analysis with in-depth interviews, this research compared the HE’s official Picturing Lockdown collection, the Instagram collection via #PicturingLockdown, and the HE National Buildings Record in the Second World War. Findings demonstrate a shift in memory dynamics. First, agents of memory are no longer only political and institutional actors, but also the public at large, introducing new possibilities for publics to assume the power of collective story-telling. Second, social media presents novel ways of archiving, specifically from a representation of the past to documentation of the present. The combination of COVID-19, a worldwide crisis that transcends cultural specificities and space, set in an age of social media, wherein any individual can contribute to archiving practices, shapes and creates new ways of memorialization.
Contemporary artificial intelligence and algorithmic processes address deep-seated existential ch... more Contemporary artificial intelligence and algorithmic processes address deep-seated existential challenges and modes of desire. In so doing, they produce computational systems of imagination, an "algorithmic as if" that enables the expression, transformation, and seeming overcoming of existential limitations via technological means. This article elaborates the character of the "algorithmic as if" by focusing on Deep Nostalgia, an online tool that turns personal photographs of the deceased into looped animations which smile, blink, and move, promising to overcome mortality by technologically "resurrecting the dead." Performing a close-reading of Deep Nostalgia's technological processes and the public discourse around its 2021 launch, the article highlights its combination of computational learning, forms of visual representation (photography, video, and animation), and distinctive realignments of temporal experience. Together, these frame the "algorithmic as if" as a magical and affective space for realizing impossible longings that are also reflexive encounters with the "limit-situation" of human mortality.
Contemporary artificial intelligence and algorithmic processes address deep-seated existential ch... more Contemporary artificial intelligence and algorithmic processes address deep-seated existential challenges and modes of desire. In so doing, they produce computational systems of imagination, an "algorithmic as if" that enables the expression, transformation, and seeming overcoming of existential limitations via technological means. This article elaborates the character of the "algorithmic as if" by focusing on Deep Nostalgia, an online tool that turns personal photographs of the deceased into looped animations which smile, blink, and move, promising to overcome mortality by technologically "resurrecting the dead." Performing a close-reading of Deep Nostalgia's technological processes and the public discourse around its 2021 launch, the article highlights its combination of computational learning, forms of visual representation (photography, video, and animation), and distinctive realignments of temporal experience. Together, these frame the "algorithmic as if" as a magical and affective space for realizing impossible longings that are also reflexive encounters with the "limit-situation" of human mortality.
Contemporary artificial intelligence and algorithmic processes address deep-seated existential ch... more Contemporary artificial intelligence and algorithmic processes address deep-seated existential challenges and modes of desire. In so doing, they produce computational systems of imagination, an "algorithmic as if" that enables the expression, transformation, and seeming overcoming of existential limitations via technological means. This article elaborates the character of the "algorithmic as if" by focusing on Deep Nostalgia, an online tool that turns personal photographs of the deceased into looped animations which smile, blink, and move, promising to overcome mortality by technologically "resurrecting the dead." Performing a close-reading of Deep Nostalgia's technological processes and the public discourse around its 2021 launch, the article highlights its combination of computational learning, forms of visual representation (photography, video, and animation), and distinctive realignments of temporal experience. Together, these frame the "algorithmic as if" as a magical and affective space for realizing impossible longings that are also reflexive encounters with the "limit-situation" of human mortality.
Worldwide, pubic memory initiatives are attempting to memorialize the current COVID-19 crisis whi... more Worldwide, pubic memory initiatives are attempting to memorialize the current COVID-19 crisis whilst it is still ongoing. The Picturing Lockdown collection is one such initiative, led by Historic England (HE), the UK’s statutory adviser on historic environment. Calling out to the public to submit photographed experiences of lockdown to both its website and via social media, HE recruited the public to partake in a national memory-making endeavor. To examine memorialization practices of the present, this research asks: in an era of social media, how is an archive of an ongoing crisis represented? Using a qualitative method for visual and textual analysis, this research compares the official HE Picturing Lockdown archive collection and #PicturingLockdown on Instagram. Analysis reveals tensions in three spheres: the institutional, the temporal, and the spatial. Demonstrating the dynamism and “presentism” introduced by social media, this research illustrates how traditional practices of ...
Worldwide, pubic memory initiatives are attempting to memorialize the current COVID-19 crisis whi... more Worldwide, pubic memory initiatives are attempting to memorialize the current COVID-19 crisis whilst it is still ongoing. The Picturing Lockdown collection is one such initiative, led by Historic England (HE), the UK’s statutory adviser on historic environment. Calling out to the public to submit photographed experiences of lockdown to both its website and via social media, HE recruited the public to partake in a national memory-making endeavor. To examine memorialization practices of the present, this research asks: in an era of social media, how is an archive of an ongoing crisis represented? Using a qualitative method for visual and textual analysis, this research compares the official HE Picturing Lockdown archive collection and #PicturingLockdown on Instagram. Analysis reveals tensions in three spheres: the institutional, the temporal, and the spatial. Demonstrating the dynamism and “presentism” introduced by social media, this research illustrates how traditional practices of ...
Worldwide, pubic memory initiatives are attempting to memorialize the current COVID-19 crisis whi... more Worldwide, pubic memory initiatives are attempting to memorialize the current COVID-19 crisis whilst it is still ongoing. The Picturing Lockdown collection is one such initiative, led by Historic England (HE), the UK's statutory adviser on historic environment. Calling out to the public to submit photographed experiences of lockdown to both its website and via social media, HE recruited the public to partake in a national memorymaking endeavor. To examine memorialization practices of the present, this research asks: in an era of social media, how is an archive of an ongoing crisis represented? Using a qualitative method for visual and textual analysis, this research compares the official HE Picturing Lockdown archive collection and #PicturingLockdown on Instagram. Analysis reveals tensions in three spheres: the institutional, the temporal, and the spatial. Demonstrating the dynamism and "presentism" introduced by social media, this research illustrates how traditional practices of commemoration are shifting.
This paper examines potential changes in the temporal experience of everyday digital media throug... more This paper examines potential changes in the temporal experience of everyday digital media through the smartphone photo album. Smartphone photo albums not only organize and display domestic photographs but also initiate temporally novel photographic formats: for instance, the images taken by users can be used as raw material in the production of new kinds of ‘moving’ or ‘animated’ photographic products, usually formatted as GIF files and characterized by looped time. While the character of these products and the processes of their creation vary across operating systems, both Google’s and Apple’s systems radically disrupt the conventional assumptions of photography theory regarding photography’s relations with time. Pre-digital photography theory postulated a key distinction between a photograph and a movie or video: the photograph is static; the movie is characterized by temporal progression. In contrast, the GIF presents a shift from linear temporality to looped, cyclical time, pro...
This paper examines potential changes in the temporal experience of everyday digital media throug... more This paper examines potential changes in the temporal experience of everyday digital media through the smartphone photo album. Smartphone photo albums not only organize and display domestic photographs but also initiate temporally novel photographic formats: for instance, the images taken by users can be used as raw material in the production of new kinds of ‘moving’ or ‘animated’ photographic products, usually formatted as GIF files and characterized by looped time. While the character of these products and the processes of their creation vary across operating systems, both Google’s and Apple’s systems radically disrupt the conventional assumptions of photography theory regarding photography’s relations with time. Pre-digital photography theory postulated a key distinction between a photograph and a movie or video: the photograph is static; the movie is characterized by temporal progression. In contrast, the GIF presents a shift from linear temporality to looped, cyclical time, pro...
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Combining visual and textual analysis with in-depth interviews, this research compared the HE’s official Picturing Lockdown collection, the Instagram collection via #PicturingLockdown, and the HE National Buildings Record in the Second World War. Findings demonstrate a shift in memory dynamics. First, agents of memory are no longer only political and institutional actors, but also the public at large, introducing new possibilities for publics to assume the power of collective story-telling. Second, social media presents novel ways of archiving, specifically from a representation of the past to documentation of the present. The combination of COVID-19, a worldwide crisis that transcends cultural specificities and space, set in an age of social media, wherein any individual can contribute to archiving practices, shapes and creates new ways of memorialization.
Combining visual and textual analysis with in-depth interviews, this research compared the HE’s official Picturing Lockdown collection, the Instagram collection via #PicturingLockdown, and the HE National Buildings Record in the Second World War. Findings demonstrate a shift in memory dynamics. First, agents of memory are no longer only political and institutional actors, but also the public at large, introducing new possibilities for publics to assume the power of collective story-telling. Second, social media presents novel ways of archiving, specifically from a representation of the past to documentation of the present. The combination of COVID-19, a worldwide crisis that transcends cultural specificities and space, set in an age of social media, wherein any individual can contribute to archiving practices, shapes and creates new ways of memorialization.