Analog captures, artificial intelligence and their distortions in the memorial restoration process of photographic archives in the novel Eu hei-de amar uma pedra and in the “Eulogy” episode of Black Mirror

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between analog photography, memory, and artificial intelligence through a comparative analysis of António Lobo Antunes’s novel Eu hei-de amar uma pedra (2004) and the episode “Eulogy” (2025) from the British series Black Mirror. Drawing on theoretical contributions by Walter Benjamin, Roland Barthes, Pierre Bourdieu, Susan Sontag, and Boris Kossoy regarding pho­tography, alongside Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutics of memory, the study investigates how photographic archives operate as devices of remembrance, mourning, and identity reconfiguration. It argues that while artificial intelligence expands the possibilities of accessing and reorganizing the past, it also in­troduces new forms of mediation, selection, and authority over memorial experience. By contrasting literary opacity with the promise of technological restoration, the article highlights the ethical and epistemological limits of externalizing memory and grief.