Memory(W)Holes

Memory has almost unequalled value to humans because it maintains the story of
who we are and, in some sense, defines us. Memory holes are acutely felt. But can
synthetic memories approximate the non-linear, networked fragments that define
human memory? Or are they simply elaborate fictions?


The Memory of Deep Blue provides a photographic record of the landmark 1997 victory of IBM’s Deep Blue over chess champion Garry Kasparov. Each photogram retraces a move by the computer (white) as it defeats Kasparov, marking a key moment in AI history.

Alan Knox, 2025, photography



I haunt myself is a poetic exploration of how digital technology shapes personal memory. Combining self-shot and archival footage with a conversation between the artist and an AI doppelganger, the work asks whether forgetting is essential to remembering and questions the line between archiving and experiencing.

David Koh, 2025, moving image (single-channel video), 4:16 mins



All that is solid… explores what remains when we fade from memory. Through found and AI-generated images, Deane inhabits spaces between presence and absence, asking what makes us search through the voids others leave behind.

Sarah Deane, 2025, image and audio, 4:48 mins



I Want to be Defined by a Grapefruit explores Reece’s struggle with obsessive thoughts through an exchange with her AI-generated great uncle, Eddy. Sent to Barcelona for relief, she instead finds therapy in photography, transforming her fear of medication into a metaphor. Perhaps photography was the bittersweet fruit she required.

Heidi Reece, 2025, photography and audio



Can you make new photographs of someone who is dead? Can you talk to them? In this series of photographs and conversations, Sweeney uses digital tools and AI to try to answer these questions and conjure her father, who died thirty years ago: My Deepfake Dad.

Sarah Sweeney, 2024/5, audio