Orit Halpern: Reclaiming Data: Art and Memory in the Age of Digital Archives

 generative systems begin to reorganise the past through datasets, statistical models, and platform infrastructures?

At its core, Reclaiming Data began from the observation that today’s archives are no longer only institutions of preservation, but increasingly operational systems: they sort, model, predict, and generate. In this sense, generative systems can be understood as inherently “nostalgic” technology. Trained on past data, they reconstruct patterns and produce synthetic versions of history. The project asked how these infrastructures shape historical consciousness, and how artistic and critical practices might intervene in them.

The symposium unfolded across three thematic trajectories. The first addressed the biases, exclusions, and political asymmetries embedded in datasets and platform systems. The second focused on artistic and activist practices of reappropriation – from reverse archaeology to synthetic historicity. The third opened questions of commons, institutional responsibility, and community-oriented forms of archiving, asking how critical perspectives can be translated into concrete practice.

Alongside the symposium, the exhibition at Flutgraben e.V. until 21 June extended these questions into space. Bringing together artistic positions by Nora Al-Badri, Juan Covelli, Egor Kraft, Yagmur Uckunkaya / Artur Cipriani, and a live performance by Jiawen Wang, the exhibition explored archives not as neutral repositories, but as contested and constantly shifting terrains of memory.

https://koerber-stiftung.de/en/projects/ecommemoration/reclaiming-data/