Initial Considerations: In Search of the Past User

Working on the apparatus collections in technology museums and media archives may create a growing awareness of the epistemological and methodological problems confronting researchers in the fields of technology and media history. Paradoxically, the acute awareness of the historical gap between now and then is clearly deepened by the material presence of the ‘leftovers’ of past media practices: magic lanterns, cameras and projectors, radio sets, video recorders, and television sets with old manuals taped on the back. One reason we seek a physical, sensual engagement with these historical artefacts is to stimulate our imagination of the past: to reflect critically on the hidden or non-verbalized, sensorial, corporal, and tacit knowledge that informs our engagement with media technologies. In this chapter, we will reflect on ways of doing experimental media archaeology, to plead once again for an integral and sensual approach towards media technology.

The point of departure of the present approach is the search for alternative ways to draft historical statements on past media practices. The main question is how historical objects of media technology can be used as sources for a sensorial-focused history of technology and the media. This chapter focuses on the materiality of past media devices, beyond their function as a sign and evidence of the past, and on the heuristic possibilities offered by an experimental approach to those devices.