Workshop: Speculative Media Archaeology

Places function as media. They organize ways of life, store historical layers of meaning, and carry potential orderings that never came to be. Speculative media archaeology is a method for bringing these constellations to the surface.

In this workshop we work with Kalmar as a media environment and archive. Through fieldwork, generative AI and AR, we move from mapping to speculation to materialization, treating each step as knowledge work in its own right. AI operates not as a tool but as a third party, disrupting the obvious relationship between observer and place. AR layers speculative pasts onto present space, making the invisible inhabitable.

For anyone curious about media theory, practice-based research, and what happens when we let places talk back

Participants will learn:

• How to read a place as a media environment and archive
• A practical workflow for speculative media archaeology
• How to use AI as a research actor rather than an assistant
• How AR can materialize speculative and historical interpretations
• How making and fabrication function as forms of knowledge production