{"id":8679,"date":"2025-04-30T10:04:22","date_gmt":"2025-04-30T08:04:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uni.lu\/c2dh-en\/?post_type=events&p=8679"},"modified":"2025-04-30T10:04:22","modified_gmt":"2025-04-30T08:04:22","slug":"vanishing-points","status":"publish","type":"events","link":"https:\/\/www.uni.lu\/c2dh-en\/events\/vanishing-points\/","title":{"rendered":"Vanishing Points: Technographies of Data Loss \u2013 Tracing Digital Remains"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\nHands on History talk with Nanna Bonde Thylstrup<\/strong>, University of Copenhagen<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This hands-on history lecture explores the often-overlooked phenomenon of digital disappearance and what happens when data seemingly vanishes. While much attention has been paid to data accumulation and preservation, this talk examines the equally important yet understudied dynamics of data loss, asking: How do digital remains persist even as information disappears? What can the material traces of deletion reveal about power structures in our datafied world? Through concrete case studies ranging from platform architectures to digital administrations, this lecture demonstrates how technical practices of data removal create complex patterns of presence and absence that challenge simple narratives of complete erasure. The exploration invites participants to rethink fundamental assumptions about digital preservation by recognizing how our data landscapes are shaped not solely by accumulation but through processes of loss, persistence, and transformation. The lecture provides theoretical frameworks for analyzing these dynamics while remaining grounded in concrete technological practices and their political implications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nanna Bonde Thylstrup <\/strong>is Associate Professor of Modern Culture and Digital Media at the University of Copenhagen. Her research examines the politics of digital infrastructures, machine learning and cultural data, with particular focus on questions of power, memory, and materiality in digital culture. She is the author of “The Politics of Mass Digitization” (MIT Press, 2018) and \u201dUncertain Archives: Criticial Keywords for Big Data\u201d (MIT Press, 2021) and she has published extensively on digital archives, data ethics, and cultural algorithms. Thylstrup is currently the Principal Investigator of the ERC-funded research project “Data Loss (DALOSS): The Politics of Disappearance, Destruction and Dispossession in Digital Societies,” which examines contemporary agendas, experiences, and practices in individual, communal, and societal efforts to eliminate, preserve, or recover data in the face of challenges such as link rot, software obsolescence, platform closures, hardware failures, and breaches. For more info see: https:\/\/artsandculturalstudies.ku.dk\/research\/daloss\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n