Generating Queer Histories

Prompting Critical Reflections on Generative AI in the Archives

Activities: Research through Design, Video Production

"Generating Queer Histories" critically examines the role of AI in historical representation and reflects on how AI might be (mis)used or unmade to reconceptualize archival ephemera from personal queer histories. In this project, I use Gen AI to create images of archival records–ephemera, places, or memories evocative of queer history. I then annotate, question, collage, un-make, and reconfigure these visualizations by hand. By annotating and unmaking, I materially reflect on Gen AI’s hegemonic role in representing historical data. Further, by bringing this process into tangible, material realities, I highlight the intimate, emotional, and embodied impressions that accompany archival records but are often erased by or difficult to parse in algorithmically defined databases. Similarly, by using photographic collages, or ephemera, I turn attention back to queer identities that have been “locked out of official histories” or material realities, to critically reflect on what “counts” as part of the historical record. 

Email   ariggs00@gmail.com

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