Migrating Technologies for Preserving and Reviving Them

This unconventional session emerged from an open call posted on SHOT website and inviting scholars, archivists, GLAM professionals, engineers, and other stakeholders to explore what happens when “dead” technologies are revived, through emulation, data migration, reconstruction, or/and exhibition.
Our central questions include: What are the technical, historical, and conceptual challenges of working with obsolete formats, fragile digital artifacts, or legacy hardware? What does it mean to migrate data or reconstruct an experience when the original materiality is lost, incomplete, non-functional, or altered by time and technological change?
The proposals we received address several core themes outlined in the call, including: the complexities of reviving digital media; the role of emulation and virtualization in accessing obsolete technologies; migrating formats and adapting content for new environments; the materiality of digital heritage; the contributions of amateurs in sustaining and reviving born-digital culture; curatorial challenges in exhibiting interactive experiences; and unexpected failures and lessons learned in the process of media resurrection.
This session presents 6 lightning talks from a diverse range of disciplines (history, heritage studies, media archaeology, and digital humanities) drawing on expertise in film, software, computing, sound, and data. Together, they offer a vivid and multifaceted perspective on the scholarly challenges and creative approaches involved in working with defunct technologies.

(1) Recording and Real Time Rendering of the acoustic properties of 20th century media in the Maison du son by Sebastian Döring, Research and development specialist, C²DH, University of Luxembourg

(2) “Staging the Amateur Dispositif”, lessons learned from a media archaeological experiment by Susan Aasman, Professor in Digital Humanities, Centre for Media and journalism Studies, University of Groningen (3) Historical Re-Enactment with “Dead” Technologies: The Case of the German Electron-Synchrotron by Dinah Pfau, Post-Doctoral Researcher, Deutsches Museum Munich

(4) Setting up and maintaining a retrocomputing laboratory by Thomas Haigh, Professor and Chair History Department, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee

(5) CD-ROMs aren’t dead, they’re not even zombies... by Fred Pailler, Post-Doctoral Researcher, C²DH, University of Luxembourg

(6) Historical Data Streams and Measuring Sustainability by Dulce van Vliet, Post-Doctoral Researcher, Eindhoven University of Technology