{"id":170841,"date":"2025-09-08T12:04:38","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T18:04:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tecscience.tec.mx\/en\/?post_type=sciencecommunication&p=170841"},"modified":"2025-09-08T12:04:58","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T18:04:58","slug":"ai-recovering-historical-memory","status":"publish","type":"sciencecommunication","link":"https:\/\/tecscience.tec.mx\/en\/science-communication\/ai-recovering-historical-memory\/","title":{"rendered":"Snapshots of What Might Have Been: Technology to Rebuild Erased Histories"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Jacob Ba\u00f1uelos Capistr\u00e1n<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Artificial intelligence doesn\u2019t have to be cold or dehumanized. The project “Art, Community, and AI: Images for an Affective Memory”<\/em><\/a><\/span> delves into a fascinating frontier: how AI can be used to create, reconstruct, and reimagine visual archives that never existed\u2014allowing communities to restore emotional and identity-based memories erased by violence, time, or historical exclusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study emerges from an urgent need in regions such as Latin America, where communities have lost visual records due to dictatorships, forced displacement, political repression, or simply because they never had access to photographic documentation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Generative AI opens the possibility of producing images that, while synthetic, hold deep symbolic and emotional meaning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reconstructing the Past with AI<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Four Latin American projects demonstrate that AI, far beyond its commercial applications, can become a powerful tool to restore fractured memories\u2014particularly in communities that have endured historical violence, forced displacement, or the loss of visual records.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The four initiatives examined in this study\u2014An Inexistent Queer Archive; Exhuming Memor.IA; IAbuelas,<\/em> and Synthetic Memories<\/em>\u2014demonstrate how technology can serve as a techno-aesthetic device, reshaping how society perceives and feels about the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In An Inexistent Queer Archive<\/a><\/em> (2022), Chilean artist Felipe Rivas San Mart\u00edn crafts a fictional photographic archive of queer life in early 20th-century Latin America using IA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the consequences of heteronormative culture is the absence of any visual record of queer experiences from the past. The generated images portray gay and lesbian couples and gender-diverse people in moments of intimacy and affection\u2014filling a painful historical void.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\r\n \r\n \"\"\r\n <\/picture>
AI-generated image recreates the daily and emotional lives of LGBTQ+ people in early 20th-century Latin America, filling a historical gap left by heteronormative culture. (Photo: A non-existent queer archive)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Synthetic Memory and Real History<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The project Exhuming Memor.IA<\/em> <\/a>(2023), by artist Rogelio S\u00e9ptimo, takes the idea of AI-driven memory reconstruction into the community sphere. On Janitzio Island in Michoac\u00e1n, Mexico, he combines ancestral Pur\u00e9pecha practices\u2014such as barter tables\u2014with artificial intelligence to visualize ancestors for whom no photographs exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the most moving examples is IAbuelas<\/a><\/em> (2023), created by advertising professional Santiago Barros. The project uses AI to imagine what the babies stolen during Argentina\u2019s dictatorship (1976\u20131983) might look like today. Drawing on photographs of their disappeared parents, the system generates updated portraits of these now middle-aged adults\u2014people who, if alive, would be between 45 and 50 years old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Importantly, these images are not intended to replace the scientific identification methods employed by the human rights group Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo. Instead, they open a space for reflection and visibility, contributing to the search for roughly 300 grandchildren who remain unidentified.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Synthetic Memories<\/em> <\/a>(2023), developed by the Barcelona-based studio Domestic Data Streamers, focuses on memory reconstruction for people with Alzheimer\u2019s or displaced communities. Through personalized interviews, oral testimonies are transformed into images that help participants reconnect with their past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Layers of Memory Work<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The research identifies three distinct levels of intervention in fractured memory:<\/p>\n\n\n\n