Dead Media: Preserving Culture and Context

Amidst all the excitement of "new media" in 1990s, Bruce Sterling coined the term "dead media" to describe the whole domain of obsolete platforms and formats, unsuccessful experiments, neglected also-rans, and visionary failures whose history was ignored in favor of dot-com boosterism, Whig history and the next big thing. This course brings to light the diversity of means for transmitting, storing, displaying information -- from pneumatic tubes to Elcaset and the Telharmonium, Polyvision and panoramas to heliography and Incan quipu. What makes media obsolete? What is lost, as well as gained, in the transitions in platforms and formats? In researching, documenting and preserving dead media, how we make them technically renderable while retaining their contextual and contemporary meaning? We will explore a large range of media through theory, history, materiality and cultural context, and learn how to preserve their complexity and how to prepare the media of our time for sustainable use in the future.