The Archive of Unnamed Work: Examining the Legacy of Colonial-Era Photography in AI

Abstract

This chapter explores how art practices that use Artificial Intelligence (AI) can point towards representational gaps and function as a form of archival activism. The first section of the chapter looks at the context of our investigation, examining archaeologyrelated photographic archives in museums formed during the colonial period in Cyprus, spanning 1878 to 1960. When brought together, these archives present a fragmented and incomplete history of Cypriot archaeology, especially when appearing online. The second section investigates how AI image generation makes use of existing datasets to produce new visual representations; databases which by nature reproduce power imbalances inherited from colonial-era photography. The third section presents and discusses an artwork titled “The Archive of Unnamed Workers” (2022) as an example of how artistic practices may use AI to reveal the inherent power imbalances found in historic archives, point towards visual gaps, and make an argument for the decolonization of Cypriot archaeology.