Doing Experimental Media Archaeology. Epistemological and Methodological Reflections on Experiments with Historical Objects of Media Technologies

The aim of this chapter is to outline experimental media archaeology as an alternative method to a sense and object-oriented technology and media historiography. The epistemological potential of an object and sense-oriented experimental access to the fijield of the history of media and technology will be discussed here on the basis of experiences in the history of science and historically informed music performances. The heart of the chapter is formed by a discussion of a series of media archaeological experiments executed by the authors in search for alternative ways to draft historical statements on past media practices. In these experiments, they focus on the materiality of past-media devices, beyond their function as sign and evidence of the past, and on the heuristic possibilities offfered by an experimental approach to these devices.