Epistemic Knowledge and the Archive in the Postdigital Age

On July 2, 2026, at 6:15 pm, Johanna Vollmeyer (Complutense University Madrid) is invited in the context of the WOC Research Center lecture series to give an online talk on “Epistemic Knowledge and the Archive in the Postdigital Age”.

This talk examines how generative artificial intelligence (IAg) is reshaping the archive as a system of knowledge in the post‑digital era. Building on Luciano Floridi’s notion of a “fourth revolution,” which displaces humans from the centre of the infosphere, the study explores the epistemic, ethical, and political implications of large language models and other generative systems. Their opacity, the limited digitisation of cultural heritage, and the growing phenomenon of self‑referential data contamination challenge traditional practices of verification and undermine trust in digital knowledge infrastructures. Drawing on Derrida’s concept of archontic power, the paper argues that IAg transforms the archive from a space of consultation into a synthetic, interpretive apparatus that mediates, filters, and rewrites memory. This shift produces new forms of authority, erases direct reference to sources, and generates a living, self‑modifying archive.

The analysis engages with artistic projects such as Rogelio Séptimo’s Exhumar la Memor.IA, which use IAg to create synthetic images based on oral testimonies and family photographs. These works illuminate both the potential and the risks of IAg: they can enrich the archive by visualising marginalised memories, yet they also reinforce Western archival paradigms that privilege written or codified forms of knowledge. Through the lenses of memory studies and critical AI scholarship, the paper argues that generative AI simultaneously expands and destabilises the archive, raising urgent questions about authenticity, authority, and the future of collective memory in an era where machines increasingly produce the very data from which they learn.

To register for this talk please write an email to: afroeuropecyberspace@uni-bremen.de

Johanna Vollmeyer is a research associate at Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM), where her research focuses on the intersections of literature and memory studies with trauma, power, and violence, as well as the constructions of identity and alterity. She is currently exploring new conceptualizations of time and memory in the postdigital age. She served on the Executive Committee of the Memory Studies Association (MSA) and is a co-founder of the research group ReOTi(Rethinking the Order of Time, a Working Group of the MSA) and the MSA Regional Group RIEM (Red Ibérica de Estudios de Memoria). She is member of the research group LEETHI (European and Spanish Literatures from Texts to Hypermedia) and co-editor of the Brill book series Mobilizing Memory. Currently she is the chair of the program committee for the MSA conference 2026. Among her most recent publications are “Fiktionalisierte Vergangenheit? – Doing memory im postdigitalen Zeitalter”. In: P. Cifre, A. Gimber, A. Ruiz, T. Tholen (eds.): Zeitdiagnosen zwischen Fakten und Fiktionen, Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 181-206 and Cultural Recycling in the Postdigital Age, co-edited with Miriam Llamas Ubieto, published by Peter Lang in Lausanne, 2024. For further details, her ORCID ID is https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9928-5605.