ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Commun.
Sec. Visual Communication
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fcomm.2025.1567694
This article is part of the Research TopicAI and CommunicationView all 5 articles
Art, Community and AI: Images for an Affective Memory
Provisionally accepted
- Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM), Monterrey, Mexico
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This research examines the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) image generation technologies for humanistic applications, specifically focusing on the creation, reconstruction, and reinvention of nonexistent visual archives through which communities can restore affective and identity-based memories. The theoretical framework draws from multiple perspectives: affect theory of postmemory, techno-aesthetic and affective apparatus theory, the concept of insubordination of signs, distribution of the sensible, and theories of affective memory and visual archives. Through case study analysis, this investigation examines the creative, ethical, and theoretical-methodological strategies employed in four artistic and experimental projects (Un archivo queer inexistente, 2022; Exhumar la Memor. IA, 2023; IAbuelas, 2023; Synthetic Memories, 2023), each driven by distinct aesthetic, emotional, political, activist, and vindicatory objectives. The research identifies three distinct levels of intervention in fractured memory through AI: the socio-political (evidenced in projects addressing historical invisibility and state violence), the community-cultural (manifested in projects recovering cultural traditions), and the therapeutic-personal (focused on individual memory restoration). The findings demonstrate the significant potential for expanding generative AI applications toward emotional repair, memory reinvention, and transformation of established sentiment structures, introducing the original concepts of "algorithmic postmemory" as a framework for understanding AI's active role in memory construction and "affective symbolic documentalism" for comprehending the testimonial value of AI-generated imagery. These applications challenge dominant discourses that render specific social collectives invisible within society while offering new methodological approaches for the restoration of fractured memories and historical healing. Table 1. Analytical matrix of cases generating affective memories through AI, 2024. Own elaboration. CASES Key Concepts Analysis Categories @Iabuelas Un archivo queer inexistente Exhumar la Memor.IA Synthetic Memories
Keywords: artificial intelligence 1, Affective Memory 2, Postmemory 3, Visual Archives 4, Memory Restoration 5
Received: 27 Jan 2025; Accepted: 21 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Bañuelos Capistrán, Zavala-Scherer and Lugo Rodríguez. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Diego Zavala-Scherer, Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM), Monterrey, Mexico
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