Anemoia: Memory of Unlived Futures

Synthetic Temporalities and Generative Visual Culture

Abstract

Why do many artificially generated images appear immediately recognizable despite not referring to any precise historical reference? This apparent familiarity constitutes one of the most significant effects of contemporary generative visual culture and raises questions about the ways in which artificial intelligence systems reorganize the memory of graphic design. Drawing on the comparative analysis of images generated by different text-to-image systems through semantically neutral prompts, the paper observes the spontaneous recurrence of heterogeneous visual grammars traceable to distinct moments in the history of graphic design within contemporary synthetic production. The analysis adopts a critical visual mapping methodology to examine three domains of generative graphic production: editorial layout, digital interface, and brand identity. These domains are treated as surfaces of visual inscription upon which the formal regularities produced by algorithmic recombination become observable, making graphic continuities analytically traceable. The paper proposes a critical transposition of the concept of anemoia, understood as nostalgia for times never experienced, into the field of media studies, through which the perceptual condition produced by algorithmic synthesis is described. Seen through this lens, images generated through the recombination of iconographic repertoires from the past appear familiar despite not being attributable to specific historical references. The result is an aesthetics of familiarity without origin, in which the future of the image is constructed through the transformation of visual memories that remain active while no longer being locatable. This condition is situated within a broader hauntological reflection. Drawing on Mark Fisher's notion of the slow cancellation of the future, the paper argues that algorithmic synthesis reactivates culturally sedimented graphic systems, contributing to the reiteration of existing imaginaries rather than to the emergence of unprecedented visual horizons.