Reclaiming Data - Art and Memory in the Age of Digital Archives

Reclaiming Data has been a symposium and exhibition that brings together artists, researchers, students, and cultural institutions to explore how artificial intelligence, digital archives, and data infrastructures are transforming collective memory. Across two days, the programme moved between keynote, screening, workshops, panel discussions, performance, and exhibition, creating a space in which artistic, theoretical, and institutional perspectives can meet.

The symposium asked: How do digital archives shape the ways we remember? Who decides what remains visible, what gets rewritten, and what disappears? And what happens when 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.

Symposium: 12–13 June 2026
Exhibition: 12–21 June 2026
Location: Flutgraben e.V. / Am Flutgraben 3 / 12435 Berlin / flutgraben.org

The symposium opened on Friday, 12 June, with a keynote by Roland Meyer, whose work on networked image cultures and generative image worlds set the discursive frame for the event. This was followed by a screening of Afterlives by Kevin B. Lee, and an aftertalk with Orit Halpern, opening questions of historicity, mediation, and synthetic image culture.

On Saturday, 13 June, the day began with three parallel workshops by Michael von zur Mühlen, Allapopp, and !Mediengruppe Bitnik, each approaching datasets, memory-making, and digital infrastructures through different practical methods.

In the afternoon, two panels brought together artistic and institutional perspectives. Panel 1 focused on artistic forms of reappropriating digital infrastructures of the past, featuring Nora Al-Badri, Juan Covelli, and Egor Kraft. Panel 2 turned toward commons, community archives, and institutional practice, with invited participants from HKW, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, and Trust Support. The symposium closed with the roundtable “Where do we go from here?”, a reflection format that aims to translate the discussions into possible next steps, alliances, and practical perspectives.

Friday, 12 June 2026

17:00 – Exhibition opening

Nora Al-Badri, Juan Covelli, Egor Kraft, Yağmur Uçkunkaya & Artur Cipriani, Minne Atairu, Nouf Aljowaysir

18:00–19:15 – Keynote: Roland Meyer
19:30–21:00 – Screening: Afterlives by Kevin B. Lee
21:00–22:00 – Aftertalk with Kevin B. Lee and Orit Halpern

Saturday, 13 June 2026

10:00–11:30 – Workshops
with Michael von zur Mühlen, Allapopp, and !Mediengruppe Bitnik

12:00–13:30 – Panel 1
On Reverse Archaeology and Synthetic Historicity
with Nora Al-Badri, Juan Covelli, and Egor Kraft – moderated by Jonny-Bix Bongers

14:30–16:00 – Panel 2
On Commons, Community Archives & Institutional Practice
With Sara Morais dos Santos Bruss (HKW), Clemens Neudecker (Staatsbibliothek), Lina Martin-Chan (Trust Support) – moderated by Anna Kraher

16:30–18:00 – Roundtable – Where do we go from here? – with Vinzenz Aubry

19:00 – Live performance by Jiawen Wang

The exhibition opens on Friday, 12 June 2026, at 17:00 and will remain open throughout the symposium on Saturday, 13 June 2026, from 10:00 to 20:00.

Additional opening hours:

Sunday, 14 June 2026

13:00–19:00

Thursday–Sunday, 18–21 June 2026

13:00–19:00

WORKSHOP 1: Memory Machines — LLMs, archival silence, and the politics of historical voice. What happens when AI systems are asked to speak in the voice of historical resistance?

A Reclaiming Data Skill Sharing Session with Michael von zur Mühlen

This workshop introduced Will the Revolution Not Be AI Scripted?, an interactive art installation in development that stages an encounter with AI-mediated voices of resistance — drawn from labor movements, anti-colonial struggles, and subaltern histories. The project is built on archival material from European and South Asian collections, including sources whose gaps and silences are themselves the product of colonial archival practice.

WORKSHOP 2: AI Sound and Cultural Memory — From Dataset to Performance. A hands-on look at how small, situated datasets become sound, style, and live performance.

A Reclaiming Data Skill Sharing Session with allapopp

This 1.5-hour Skill Sharing Session with allapopp offered insight into an artistic workflow — from critical model conceptualization and data collection to its transformation into sound and live performance. Focusing on current research with small datasets and non-dominant cultural narratives, the workshop explores low-barrier approaches to AI sound (style-transfer) model training. Using an accessible, off-the-shelf sound plugin, participants were able to follow how small, situated datasets can be used within a style-transfer model.

WORKSHOP 3: Unreal Data — Real Effects. A critical, performative approach to digital rating practices — and what the world looks like through one-star reviews.

A Reclaiming Data Skill Sharing Session with !Mediengruppe Bitnik

!Mediengruppe Bitnik are contemporary artists who work on and with the Internet. Their practice expands from the digital to affect physical spaces, often intentionally employing loss of control to challenge established structures and mechanisms. Their works are shown internationally, most recently in exhibitions at Kunsthalle Osnabrück, the 9th Trondheim Biennale for Art and Technology, and Aksioma Institute for Contemporary Art Ljubljana.

Reclaiming Data has been a collaboration by DOCKdigital, New Practice / Design & Computation, and Körber-Stiftungs’ eCommemoration programme, supported by Technologiestiftung Berlin as part of kulturBdigital and by Burg Hülshoff – Center for Literature, curated by Jonny-Bix Bongers.