Editorial #23. Digital Memories. What future for the past? What past for the future?

For this first PAD journal issue dedicated to the theme of Digital Memories, we have chosen, as the opening image, a quipu (or khipu). The image represents the artistic interpretation made by Cecilia Vicuña on the occasion of her exhibition, still in progress now, at the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall. Vicuña has been exploring and transforming the quipu in her work for over five decades, getting inspiration from this ancient recording and communication system used by the Quechua people of the Andes from 2500 BCE through to the 16th century at the time of the Spanish conquest. Literally, quipu means ‘knot’ in the Quechua language and consisted of a long textile cord from which hung multiple strands knotted into different formations and in different colors that were able to encode as much complex information as the alphabet. It is thought that they were used to record statistics, poems, and stories, thereby creating a tactile relationship between memory and the imaginary. This reference seemed perfect to introduce the present issue’s central theme: an ancient, alternative, and complex system of recording memories.