Notices by media archaeology lab (mediaarchaeologylab@post.lurk.org)

this month's reading for the MAL is Blockchain Chicken Farm from Xiaowei Wang - feel free to read along with us! #MALbookclub https://othernetworks.net/2024/11/04/november-book-club/

there's actually a wiki article about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain_Chicken_Farm

@djsundog all technology should be weird modular lego-like bricks

you know we love a weird adapter - this is a good one: an AM receiver that goes in your cassette player. of course, it only works with an open-face cassette player because it's a bit chunky. and it's too big to fit in our cassette-to-8track adapter so we can't make a frankenstein

"Colonization at the Speed of Light: An Archaeological Study of Communication Technology and the Settlement of the American West" is the final talk in the Barbed Wire Fence Telephone II speaker series.

Professor Sam Duwe from the University of Oklahoma says: this talk addresses the intersections between anthropology, history, and technology to explore how the development of two-way communication networks in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries were tied to the American colonization of the American Southwest. While this takes many forms (railroads/telegraph, telephones, radio), I specifically focus here on one brief but dramatic event: the Geronimo Campaign of 1886. I am currently examining the network of heliographs (sun-mirror signaling) employed by the U.S. Army in southeastern Arizona to aid in capturing the Apache leader. Through a synthesis of archaeological material, archival records, and GIS analysis I seek to virtually reconstruct this network to address its debated effectiveness in warfare as well as begin to broach how the Apache conceptualized, responded, and adapted to a novel network of surveillance.

Join us on Monday September 23 at 12pm our time (UTC-6). This one is online-only so please contact mediaarchaeology@colorado.edu for Zoom info (or watch on Twitch)!

If you missed @ntnsndr 's talk, you can view the recording on our Vimeo channel https://vimeo.com/1011089648

we have 2 Barbed Wire Fence Telephone events this week!

first, if you are in Boulder or the surrounding area, this Wednesday from 1-4 we're hosting a "Snail Mail Party". bring the mailing address of someone you'd like to send something by post, we'll provide stamps, envelopes and writing/crafting supplies! in the CASE building on the CU Boulder campus, room W250

on Friday Sept. 13 at 12 PM our time, professor Cheryl Higashida will give a talk titled "Radiotelephony, Race and Rights"

Beginning in the 1960s, the civil rights and farm workers movements developed their own radiotelephone systems, thereby challenging the whiteness of mobile telephony. This history of social movement telephony amplifies linkages between the civil rights and farm workers movements as well as crucial differences between their respective pursuits of political progress through technological projects.

This is a hybrid event: we'll be in person in CASE W250 and also streaming on our Twitch channel https://www.twitch.tv/mediaarchaeology

If you aren't able to attend Cheryl's talk on Friday, maybe you can come to Nathan Schneider's @ntnsndr talk next Wednesday!

He'll be giving a talk titled "Governable Spaces: Democratic Design for Online Life" as an introduction to his new book by the same title.

The question posed is: why does governance in our everyday online spaces matter? The book argues that we should turn the conversation about the internet and democracy upside-down.

Join us in CASE W250 or on Twitch at 12:30 PM our time (UTC-6)

we are so thrilled to launch this pamphlet series, Other Networks For Everyone. add your name to the list if you'd like us to mail you a copy---> https://forms.gle/jfsEZZMyLf1L5SrG8 #othernetworks

hey we're live on our first attempt at some lunchtime screening - just doing some cataloging today, maybe we'll work up to something more extensive in the future. https://www.twitch.tv/mediaarchaeology

so if anyone has a soon to be bricked Spotify Car Thing... we will happily take one to add to our shelf of "hardware that would continue to work just fine if it weren't for capitalism being capitalism" (we're still working on the name)

edit: thanks to @dgfitch and @Mabande for getting us to Corporolized Hardware, as in "enshittification in it's final stage a fossilized piece of corporate shit"
feels like we should tag @pluralistic in on this one 🌈

@ntnsndr can't see what they are unfortunately (no linked in account)!

@dr_a @thomasfuchs oh that is beautiful and odd

rule number eleventy three of the MAL: if it's capable of receiving a TV signal, it must be made to do so immediately.

and probably that TV signal will be a VHS tape of Jurassic Park running through our TV transmitter...

@lolcat @loriemerson we have a small collection of them if you're ever able to visit!

would a virtual visit to the Media Archaeology Lab be useful to your class or group this spring?

we have some space in our calendar - get in touch and we'll see if we can make something work!

look at this incredible thing that's living at the lab for the month of December! if you're near us, we really do suggest coming by to check it out...

proof:

thanks to @colin_mcmillen for the awesome Apple IIc Mastodon client, this is way too cool