About this Event
Archive Fever & AI
A convening on generative AI, archival practice, and found text
Archives built the large language models that are now reshaping how the past gets read, and generative AI is in turn changing how archives themselves get built, accessed, and used.
This one-day convening brings together scholars, artists, poets, and archivists working at the intersection of generative AI and archival humanities to ask: who builds the infrastructure, who controls access, what's preserved, and what gets lost or irrevocably altered in the process?
The day includes two moderated panel sessions and closes with a live sound performance by artist Victoria Keddie, built from archival and transmission-based material.
Schedule — Saturday, November 7, 2026
9:30–9:45 am — Welcome and announcements
9:45 am–12:15 pm — Session 1, The Archive Under Pressure
1:45–4:15 pm — Session 2, Found Text as Method
4:15–4:30 pm — Break
4:30–5:30 pm — Sound performance, Victoria Keddie
Session 1 — The Archive Under Pressure
Tom Lippincott, Richard Marciano, Maria Antoniak, and George Oates on the methodological and ethical stakes of applying machine learning to historical collections — what's gained, what's lost, and who decides. Moderated by Kyle Stine.
Session 2 — Found Text as Method
Lillian-Yvonne Bertram, Eryk Salvaggio, Mark Shepard, and Victoria Keddie on using AI tools to surface archival and found voices rather than replace them — work that treats the machine's output, and its noise, as raw material for creation and investigation. Moderated by Liz Flyntz.
Participants
Maria Antoniak — Computer Science, University of Colorado Boulder
Lillian-Yvonne Bertram — English, University of Maryland
Victoria Keddie — Weitzman School of Design, University of Pennsylvania
Tom Lippincott — Center for Digital Humanities, Johns Hopkins University
Richard Marciano — College of Information, University of Maryland
George Oates — Deep Keep / Flickr.org
Eryk Salvaggio — Cambridge Digital Humanities, University of Cambridge
Mark Shepard — Architecture and Media Study, University at Buffalo
Location
Parkway Theatre
5 West North Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21201
Hosted by the Film and Media Studies Program, Johns Hopkins University
Funded by the JHU Sesquicentennial Awards Program, Envisioning the Future Award
Event venue & nearby stays
Parkway Theatre, 5 West North Avenue, Baltimore, United States
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups — all the happenings, one place.