CEMETIK member Jan Motal has joined the AIrchivist project, which is being developed with the support of the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic in cooperation with FAMU and Future Memory Lab. The project focuses on rethinking work with archival audiovisual materials at a time when artificial intelligence tools are increasingly shaping this field. The research responds both to the ethical and legal challenges of working with archives and to the need for new tools for the description and contextual analysis of audiovisual materials.
Among those involved in the project are filmmaker and educator Lucie Králová, who works at FAMU’s Department of Documentary Film and is also the founder and lead of the Future Memory Lab programme, and film historian Lucie Česálková, a researcher at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, who has long specialised in the history of Czech non-fiction and documentary cinema.
AIrchivist has a dual ambition. On the one hand, it aims to develop a prototype tool that would make it easier for filmmakers to work with video archives, help them identify connections, and enable them to map patterns, motifs, and contexts in archival materials more effectively. On the other hand, the project will produce a set of ethical recommendations and a legal manual that will help address sensitive questions related to the use of archival footage, its interpretation, description, and further processing in the context of contemporary technologies.
We see our involvement in the project as another opportunity to further develop within CEMETIK the themes of media ethics, responsible engagement with technology, and the critical reflection on artificial intelligence in audiovisual culture. For us, the importance of AIrchivist lies precisely in the fact that it promises not only more effective work with archives, but also opens up space for questions of responsibility, representation, historical context, and the protection of vulnerable groups.