Hands On Media History: A New Methodology In The Humanities And Social Sciences

257 Pages·2020·2.444 MB·English

by  Nick Hall, John Ellis

HANDS ON MEDIA HISTORY
Hands on Media History explores the whole range of hands on media history
techniques for the fi rst time, offering both practical guides and general perspectives.
It covers both analogue and digital media; fi lm, television, video, gaming,
photography and recorded sound.
Understanding media means understanding the technologies involved. The
hands on history approach can open our minds to new perceptions of how media
technologies work and how we work with them. Essays in this collection explore
the diffi cult questions of reconstruction and historical memory, and the issues
of equipment degradation and loss. H ands on Media History is concerned with
both the professional and the amateur, the producers and the users, providing a
new perspective on one of the modern era’s most urgent questions: what is the
relationship between people and the technologies they use every day?
Engaging and enlightening, this collection is a key reference for students and
scholars of media studies, digital humanities, and for those interested in models of
museum and research practice.
Nick Hall lectures in fi lm, television and media technologies at Royal Holloway,
University of London. His fi rst book, The Zoom: Drama at the Touch of a Lever, was
published in 2018. He has also been published in the journals T echnology & Culture
and the H istorical Journal of Film, Radio and Television .
John Ellis is a professor at Royal Holloway, University of London. He wrote Visible
Fictions (1982), Seeing Things (2000) and Documentary: Witness and Self-Revelation
(2012). Between 1982 and 1999 he ran the independent production company
Large Door, making documentaries for Channel 4 and the BBC.
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HANDS ON MEDIA
HISTORY
A New Methodology in the
Humanities and Social Sciences
Edited by
Nick Hall and John Ellis
First published 2020
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2020 selection and editorial matter, Nick Hall and John Ellis; individual
chapters, the contributors
The right of Nick Hall and John Ellis to be identifi ed as the authors of the
editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted
in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in
any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identifi cation and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hall, Nick, 1985– editor. | Ellis, John, 1952– editor.
Title: Hands on media history : a new methodology in the humanities and social
sciences / edited by Nick Hall and John Ellis.
Description: London ; New York : Routledge, 2020. | Includes bibliographical
references and index. |
Identifi ers: LCCN 2019016484 (print) | LCCN 2019980154 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781138577480 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781138577497 (pbk. : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9781351247412 (ebk)
Subjects: LCSH: Mass media and technology—History—Study and teaching. |
Mass media and technology—Historiography. | Mass media and
technology—Philosophy. | Mass media—Technological
innovations—History. | Human-computer interaction—Philosophy.
Classifi cation: LCC P96.T42 H367 2020 (print) | LCC P96.T42 (ebook) |
DDC 302.23—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019016484
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019980154
ISBN: 978-1-138-57748-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-57749-7 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-351-24741-2 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
CONTENTS
List of fi gures viii
Acknowledgements xii
List of contributors xiii
Introduction: what is hands on media history? 1
John Ellis and Nick Hall
PART I
Media histories 9
1 Why hands on history matters 11
John Ellis
2 Bringing the living back to life: what happens when
we reenact the recent past? 26
Nick Hall
3 A blind date with the past: transforming television
documentary practice into a research method 43
Amanda Murphy
4 (De)habituation histories: how to re-sensitize
media historians 58
Andreas Fickers and Annie van den Oever
vi Contents
5 (Un)certain ghosts: rephotography and historical images 76
Mary Agnes Krell
PART II
User communities 89
6 Photography against the Anthropocene: the anthotype
as a call for action 91
Kristof Vrancken
7 On the performance of playback for dead media devices 110
Matthew Hockenberry and Jason LaRiviere
8 The archaeology of the Walkman: audience perspectives and
the roots of mobile media intimacy 126
Maruša Pušnik
9 Extended play: hands on with 40 years of English
amusement arcades 145
Alex Wade
10 Enriching ‘hands on history’ through community
dissemination: a case study of the P ebble Mill project 160
Vanessa Jackson
PART III
Labs, archives and museums 173
11 The Media Archaeology Lab as platform for undoing
and reimagining media history 175
Lori Emerson
12 Refl ections and reminiscences: tactile encounters
and participatory research with vintage media
technology in the museum 187
Christian Hviid Mortensen and Lise Kapper
13 A vision in Bakelite: exploring the aesthetic, material
and operational potential of the Bush TV22 204
Elinor Groom
Contents vii
14 Hands on circuits: preserving the semantic surplus
of circuit-level functionality with programmable
logic devices 222
Fabian Offert
Index 235
FIGURES
1.1–1.4 T elevision fi lm and video editor Dawn Trotman
demonstrating the use of an Acmade Pic-Sync
during an ADAPT project reenactment exercise. 17
1.5 Vision engineers Bill Baldock and John Coupe at work
inside North 3, an outside broadcast vehicle formerly
owned by the BBC. 18
2.1 A child attempts to switch on an Apple II personal
computer in Kids React To Old Computers . 32
2.2 and 2.3 A pplying for a new Blockbuster Video membership card
and rediscovering the DVD case in ‘Touring The Last
Surviving Blockbuster Video’. 34
2.4 Bill Chesneau, Ray Sutcliffe, John Adderley and David
Whitson participate in a reenactment of 1970s television
fi lm production. 38
3.1 Ex-BBC Type 2 outside broadcast truck North 3, ‘on
location’ outside Northop Hall hotel in Flintshire. 46
3.2 Screens set up in the ‘video village’ monitored output from
multiple fi xed cameras overlooking the ADAPT project
reenactment event. 47
3.3 Vision supervisor Roger Neale and vision engineer John
Coupe at the camera control desk inside ex-BBC outside
broadcast truck North 3. 51
3.4 Images of a live darts match displayed on preview monitors
inside ex-BBC outside broadcast truck North 3, during an
ADAPT project reenactment exercise. 54
5.1 Screenshot from the project, ‘Traces of Lee Miller: Echoes
from St. Malo’. 77
Figures ix
5.2 This image is interactive on the National Parks Service
Klondike Gold Rush Site (https://www.nps.gov/klgo/
learn/nature/repeatphotography.htm) . 80
5.3 An image from the project Traces of Lee Miller: Echoes
from St. Malo . 85
6.1 Transit , slag heaps of Winterslag, Genk, 2017.
(Kristof Vrancken) 92
6.2 Harvesting ingredients on a contaminated area, 2016.
(Kristof Vrancken) 95
6.3 Cameraless photograph: dune pansy, Abandoned Ford
grounds, 2016. (Kristof Vrancken) 96
6.4 The appearance of an Anthotype Print – Lab Test, 2018.
(Kristof Vrancken) 97
6.5 Transit , slag heap of Zwartberg (black-mountain), Genk,
2017. (Kristof Vrancken) 99
6.6 Transit , slag heap of Waterschei and Parking Lot, Genk,
2017. (Kristof Vrancken) 99
6.7 Transit , Waterschei, Genk, 2017. (Kristof Vrancken) 99
6.8 Transit , Genk-South, 2017. (Kristof Vrancken) 101
6.9 The potable and light-sensitive Anthropocene elixir.
(Kristof Vrancken) 102
6.10 Transit , abandoned Ford grounds, Genk, 2017. (Kristof
Vrancken) 103
6.11 Portraits mijnKOOL , Genk, 2017. (Kristof Vrancken) 105
6.12 Transit , Winterslag, Genk, 2017. (Kristof Vrancken) 106
7.1 Performance of Videodrome (1982) on the Dead Media
Streaming Service. 110
7.2 Custom posters for some of the home video releases
screened on the service. 112
7.3 Betamax streaming server. 115
7.4 Curriculum for use with the Dead Media Streaming Service. 122
8.1 and 8.2 E xamples of mobile uses of the Walkman. (Photographs
by Melisa Lozica and Domen Valjavec) 133
8.3 Privatization of the Walkman experience. (Photograph
by Vita Vlašicˇ) 138
8.4 and 8.5 Examples of handling the Walkman. (Photographs by Lea
Plut and Ema Kranjc) 141
10.1 Former Radio WM engineer, Rod Fawcett, with the Radio
WM radio car. (Photo by permission of Rod Fawcett) 164
10.2 A BBC Radio links vehicle at Burghley Horse Trials.
(Photo by permission of Steve Dellow) 165
10.3 Eagle Tower Dinky toy. (Photo by permission
of Cyril Thompson) 165