Data Never Dies

Lees in het Nederlands

Instagram profiles haunt the internet after their owners have passed away. Forgotten messages are training AI, and deepfakes give our bodies digital double lives, beyond our control and consent. No matter how fleeting they may seem: a photograph, a message, a search query, a profile or avatar. Each and every one leaves a trace. Together, these traces form a digital legacy: scattered fragments of ourselves that are reused and recycled, continue to circulate, and resurface unexpectedly. 

But who decides what is remembered? What lives on beyond the fantasy of safe storage?

Our age of hyperconnectivity offers new ways to document, remember and revisit the past. Our past selves have become searchable, our memories copied, linked and shared. At the same time, this changes how we mourn, and impacts our ability to forget and reshape our digital identity.

In Data Never Dies artists move between digital traces, digital death and AI generation. Video, deepfakes, performance, photography and interactive installations reveal how personal data haunts platforms, clouds and AI systems. Some works create new rituals for mourning and forgetting. Others offer visitors speculative interactions to reflect on their own relationship to data and its afterlife. The exhibition invites you to reflect on what it means to live with data that represents, haunts, or outlives you.

Encounter forgotten Sims that have taken on lives of their own, mourn your crashed laptop, do a data detox and wonder what remains of you online.

The exhibition presents works by Amélie McKee & Melle Nieling, Charmaine Poh, Esther Hovers, Ginevra Petrozzi, Gjorgji Despodov, Janilda Bartolomeu, Joeri Boelhouwer, Kyriaki Goni, playField and Ruben Mols.

Curator: Rosa Wevers.