Panel Statement

Keywords: Media archaeology, Global media archaeology, media history, Asia, Latin America, Magic Lantern.

Abstract

Media studies is facing many challenges. One of them is finding out how to account for the presence of technical media in an increasingly global mondial environment. This cannot be achieved by concentrating only on the present, or by studying contemporary media platforms based on computing on a planetary scale. It is also necessary to work at the historical level, and to deconstruct standard historical narratives of media history written from a pervasive Western perspective. At the same time, it is necessary to tell alterna tive stories of devices and artifacts by linking them to their cultural-historical contexts and giving an account of their resonances and migrations between different cultures. Media archaeology provides potential to contribute to this process, but its tools must be critically investigated and modified to fit the task. Some scholars practicing media archaeology have purported to expand their field of operations by questioning accounts West-centered historiography and looking for more diverse and complex approaches. However, that is only the beginning. Many issues remain to be solved.

The three presentations in this panel will explore ways of applying media archaeology to issues of cross-cultural and international media and technology transfers. The first presentation by Erkki Huhtamo will discuss the possibilities and pitfalls of extending media archaeology to cross-cultural issues from a theoretical perspective. It is followed by two presentations shedding light on the vicissitudes of the magic lantern in different cultural contexts. Machiko Kusahara will discuss the uses of magic lanterns in nineteenth-century Japan adding little known aspects to the understanding of visual media in Far Asian cultures. The second presentation by Andres Burbano will explore the magic lantern as a literary object in the Mexican poetry of the seventeenth century, exposing some of the roots of optical media and literary culture in Latin America.

• Erkki Huhtamo (FI) is a professor at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), Departments of Design Media Arts, and Film, Television, and Digital Media. He received his Ph.D. in cultural history from the University of Turku, Finland. Huhtamo is an internationally renowned media historian and theorist, and a specialist in the history and aesthetics of media arts. He is one of the founders of media archaeology. Huhtamo has published extensively, curated exhibitions, directed television programs, performed on stage, and lectured worldwide. His major work to date is Illusions in Motion: Media Archaeology of the Moving Panorama and Related Spectacles (2013). How to Dismantle a Fairy Engine: Media Archaeology as Topos Study is forthcoming.
• Machiko Kusahara (JP) is a scholar specializing in media art and media archaeology. She began curating in the fields of computer graphics and media art in early 1980s. Kusahara has participated in launching venues like the Metropolitan Museum of Photography (now TOP Museum, Tokyo) and NTT/ICC (Tokyo). She has worked in juries for many international competitions including Ars Electronica, ISEA, Hiroshima International Animation Festival and Japan Media Arts Festival. Kusahara’s research focuses on the interrelations between media technology, art, culture and society, both in contemporary and in early visual media. She lectures worldwide, and has published widely on media art, Device Art, magic lantern history, panoramas, etc. Kusahara is professor emerita of Waseda University, Tokyo. She holds a Ph.D in engineering from the University of Tokyo, and is based in Tokyo.
• Andrés Burbano is Associate Professor in the Department of Design at Universidad de los Andes, Colombia. Burbano holds a Ph.D. in Me dia Arts and Technology from the University of California Santa Barbara, USA. Burbano has been a keynote speaker at Potential Spaces at the ZKM (Karlsruhe, Germany) in 2017, the Academic Chair of ISEA2017 (Bogota. Colombia), and Siggraph 2018 Art Gallery Chair (Vancouver, Canada). He is the Siggraph 2020 Art Papers Chair (Washington, USA). “Burbano explores the interactions of science, art and technology in various capacities: as a researcher, as an individual artist and in collaborations with other artists and designers. The broad spectrum of his work illustrates the importance, even the prevalence, of interdisciplinary collaborative work in the field of digital art.”

Full text (PDF) p. 710-712