A new era of digital memory invites society to confront the silences of the archive and rethink the politics of collective remembrance.
In 2021, Tamil Nadu’s political landscape witnessed a striking use of deepfake technology when artificial intelligence (AI)-generated videos brought the late leaders M Karunanidhi and J Jayalalithaa back to the public stage, delivering speeches that resonated with their respective party bases. These videos, widely circulated during election campaigns, sparked vigorous debate about the ethics of resurrecting the deceased for contemporary political messaging and their implications for public memory and truth. While these examples centred on prominent figures, they reveal the transformative and contentious potential of synthetic media in shaping collective memory in India.
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