HANDS ON MEDIA HISTORY Hands on Media History explores the whole range of hands on media history techniques for the first 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 difficult questions of reconstruction and historical memory, and the issues of equipment degradation and loss. Hands 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 film, 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 Technology & Culture and the Historical 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. 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. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. 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 figures 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 Pebble 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 Reflections 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 Television 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 Applying 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 Examples 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 x Figures 10.4 Pebble Mill Eagle Tower. (Photo by permission of Stuart Gandy) 166 10.5 Rigged Eagle Towers at Silverstone. (Photo by permission of Steve Dellow) 166 10.6 Outside broadcast communications sheet. (Photography by permission of Steve Dellow ) 167 11.1 Apple Platinum IIe computer, from 1987, housed in the Media Archaeology Lab. 178 11.2 5.25" floppies of ‘manuscript’ versions of bpNichol’s digital poem “First Screening” from 1982–1983, housed in the Media Archaeology Lab. 179 11.3 Commodore 64 computer, from 1982, housed in the Media Archaeology Lab. 180 11.4 Altair 8800b computer, from 1976, housed in the Media Archaeology Lab. 181 11.5 Vectrex game console, from 1983, housed in the Media Archaeology Lab. 181 11.6 Xerox typewriter, likely from around 1987, housed in the Media Archaeology Lab. 182 11.7 Magic Lantern, likely from around 1910, housed in the Media Archaeology Lab.