I am a visual artist turned anthropologist, though creativity is at the core of my participatory action research. This research is at the intersection of multiple 'studies': Science and Technology Studies, Environmental Media Studies, and Critical Data Studies. This interdisciplinary approach means that I also venture into other fields, always attentive to the question of power in shaping the future in a world that is on fire.
My current PhD Project (2022-2026) centers on the research question: What are the social, material, and infrastructural conditions to imagine, co-create, and sustain the future of our personal digital heritage? In other words, what might the future of our digital past look like, and at what environmental cost? Through interviews with users and experts, I critically examine long-term preservation and valuation practices, paying particular attention to the global ecological impact of said practices.
Fed by each image, message, and post we create, our personal digital archives continue to expand. This growth is driven by everyday technologies operating under a capitalist logic of saving by default. But what happens when this growth becomes unsustainable? The material infrastructure underpinning our digital lives—data centers, sub-sea cables, server farms—demands significant natural resources and contributes to the current ecological crisis. If we shift the question to how we want to be remembered in the future and what world we want to leave behind, we might question whether we need to save everything. Instead, we might move from save to delete.
My research combines the individual and institutional perspectives. First, I spent a year conducting ethnographic fieldwork with a grassroots volunteer community experiencing (temporary) socioeconomic hardship. Together with a theater collective PLOECH EN EIDE I organised two object-led focus groups with people from this community, where we asked how we want to be remembered. These sessions, together with input from interviews and observations, culminated in a theatrical audio installation 'Toekomst van het Verleden' taking place at a cultural festival from June 29 until August 24.
Second, I conducted ethnographic interviews with experts on digital legacy, such as notaries, tech start-ups, and archival professionals. Observations of team meetings within the archival institution complemented these interviews. Based on these findings, I will produce a policy brief discussing their existing and anticipated digital preservation strategies.