Media Archaeology

Media archaeology is a field of study that attempts to understand new and emerging media through close examination of the past, particularly through critical scrutiny of dominant progressivist narratives of popular commercial media such as film and television. Media archaeologists often evince strong interest in so-called dead media, noting that new media often revive and recirculate material and techniques of communication that had been lost, neglected, or obscured. The field challenges linear technological progress narratives by revealing how contemporary digital technologies often resurrect forgotten or abandoned media forms and practices.

Theoretical Foundations

The theories and concepts of media archaeology have been primarily elaborated by the scholars and cultural critics Thomas Elsaesser, Erkki Huhtamo, Siegfried Zielinski, and Wolfgang Ernst, taking off from earlier work by Michel Foucault on the archaeology of knowledge, Walter Benjamin on the culture of mass media, and film scholars such as C.W. Ceram on the archaeology of cinema. Other writers who have contributed to the discipline's emergence include Eric Kluitenberg, Anne Friedberg, Friedrich Kittler, and Jonathan Crary. The field draws on Foucaultian archaeological methods to excavate the historical layers of media technologies and their cultural contexts.

Methodological Approach

New media theorist Jussi Parikka defines media archaeology as follows: "Media archaeology exists somewhere between materialist media theories and the insistence on the value of the obsolete and forgotten through new cultural histories that have emerged since the 1980s. I see media archaeology as a theoretically refined analysis of the historical layers of media in their singularity—a conceptual and practical exercise in carving out the aesthetic, cultural, and political singularities of media. And it's much more than paying theoretical attention to the intensive relations between new and old media mediated through concrete and conceptual archives; increasingly, media archaeology is a method for doing media design and art."

Media Archaeology Labs

Computer labs that archive and preserve obsolete technology are termed media archaeology labs, such as the Electronic Literature Lab that allows scholars to access electronic literature on "appropriate computer equipment." The Media Archaeology Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder, founded in 2009 by Dr. Lori Emerson, exemplifies this hands-on approach by maintaining one of the largest collections of still-functioning obsolete media in the world, including historic personal computers, handheld devices, and game consoles.

Relationship to Cyborg Anthropology

Media archaeology provides crucial methodological tools for cyborg anthropological analysis by revealing how human-technology relationships have evolved over time. Some media archaeologists are also concerned with the relationship between media fantasies and technological development, especially the ways in which ideas about imaginary or speculative media affect the media that actually emerge. This focus on imaginary and speculative media connects to cyborg anthropological concerns about how technological fantasies shape actual cyborg integration processes and social expectations about human-machine relationships.

Contemporary Relevance

Media archaeology offers critical perspectives on digital culture by demonstrating that technological development is neither inevitable nor uniformly progressive. By excavating forgotten media forms and alternative technological paths, media archaeology reveals the contingent nature of current digital systems and opens space for imagining different technological futures. This approach is particularly relevant for understanding how contemporary cyborg relationships emerge from complex historical negotiations between human agency and technological possibility.

Further Reading

• Media Archeology Lab, Boulder, Colorado
• CTheory
• Internet Archive]
• Textfiles by Jason Scott
• restorativland - A project to excavate shut down, abandoned web ruins and restore them to surfable, visually accessible, searchable, remixable condition