Repression archive is an artistic project that explores the mechanisms of memory in the age of the digital image.
The work examines the act of publishing images of denunciation on social media, revealing how this act simultaneously feeds the databases used to train generative artificial intelligence models.
Through a process of compilation, a dedicated archive was created using photographs and videos extracted from social media, which were then subjected to various AI models. The resulting images cease to function as objective documents and instead become latent traces of a memory that continuously dissolves and reconstructs itself.
Mecha MIO offers a critical perspective on these dynamics, highlighting how algorithmic systems—used by various spheres of power—process, classify and manage the immense flow of information generated by contemporary society.
This reflection engages directly with the text Excavating AI (2019) by Kate Crawford and Trevor Paglen, which invites us to examine the datasets used to train artificial intelligence systems and to question the supposed neutrality of the structures operating behind them.
Winner of a special mention in the Art and Artificial Intelligence category of the 2023 Itaú Visual Arts Award, Repression archive presents itself as a visual and conceptual experience that leads us to observe more deeply the complex interplay between denunciation, data and power.
Mecha Invernizzi Oviedo is a multimedia and electronic artist of Cuban-Argentine origin. Her practice spans audiovisual performance, public interventions and critical research into generative artificial intelligence. Her work explores the use of generative AI models in multimedia art from a critical perspective, focusing on the mechanisms of memory in the digital image era. She is a lecturer at Torcuato Di Tella University and co-directs the Diploma in Artificial Intelligence Applied to Multimedia and Electronic Art at the National University of the Arts (UNA), Argentina. Her works have received awards and honourable mentions, and have been exhibited at organisations such as Proa 21, MUTEK (Buenos Aires and Montreal), the New Opera Festival, the Pleamar Festival, the Byte Footage Festival, Somerset House Studios UK, Fundación Telefónica Perú and HUB Digital Chile, amongst others. She currently delivers talks and workshops as a specialist in art and AI at various academic institutions.
