The Dead Media Project was initially proposed by science fiction writer

Bruce Sterling Michael Bruce Sterling (born April 14, 1954) is an American science fiction author known for his novels and short fiction and editorship of the '' Mirrorshades'' anthology. In particular, he is linked to the cyberpunk subgenre. Sterling's firs ...

in 1995 as a compilation of obsolete and forgotten communication technologies.Dead Media Project: A Modest Proposal and a Public Appeal
/ref> Sterling's original motivation for compiling the collection was to present a wider historical perspective on communication technologies that went beyond contemporary excitement for the

internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a ''internetworking, network of networks'' that consists ...

, CD-ROMs and VR systems. Sterling proposed that this collection take form as "The Dead Media Handbook" — a somber, thoughtful, thorough, hype-free, book about the failures, collapses and hideous mistakes of media. In raising this challenge he offers a "crisp $50 dollar bill" to the first person to publish the book, which he envisions as a "rich, witty, insightful, profusely illustrated, perfectbound, acid-free-paper

coffee-table book A coffee table book, also known as a cocktail table book, is an oversized, usually hard-covered book whose purpose is for display on a table intended for use in an area in which one entertains guests and from which it can serve to inspire convers ...

". After articulated in the manifesto "The Dead Media Project — A Modest Proposal and a Public Appeal," The Dead Media Project began as a number of persons collecting their notes and the spreading of the archive through a mailing list, moderated by

Tom Jennings Thomas Daniel Jennings (born 1955) is a Los Angeles-based artist, known for his work on FidoNet and for his work at Phoenix Software on MS-DOS integration and interoperability. Work He is the creator of FidoNet, the first message and file ne ...

. This resulted in a large collective of "field notes" about obsolete communication technologies, about 600 in tota
archived online
The project lost momentum in 2001 and the mailing list died. The project archive includes a wide variety of notes from

Inca The Inca Empire (also known as the Incan Empire and the Inka Empire), called ''Tawantinsuyu'' by its subjects, ( Quechua for the "Realm of the Four Parts", "four parts together" ) was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The admi ...

quipu ''Quipu'' (also spelled ''khipu'') are recording devices fashioned from strings historically used by a number of cultures in the region of Andean South America. A ''quipu'' usually consisted of cotton or camelid fiber strings. The Inca peop ...

s, through Victorian

phenakistoscope The phenakistiscope (also known by the spellings phénakisticope or phenakistoscope) was the first widespread animation device that created a fluent illusion of motion. Dubbed and ('stroboscopic discs') by its inventors, it has been known und ...

s, to the departed

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device to gener ...

s and home computers of the 1980s. Dead still-image display technologies include the

stereopticon A stereopticon is a slide projector or relatively powerful "magic lantern", which has two lenses, usually one above the other, and has mainly been used to project photographic images. These devices date back to the mid 19th century, and were a popu ...

, the Protean View, the Zogroscope, the Polyorama Panoptique, Frith's Cosmoscope, Knight's

Cosmorama A cosmorama is an exhibition of perspective pictures of different places in the world, usually world landmarks. Careful use of illumination and lenses gives the images greater realism. Cosmorama was also the name of an entertainment in 19th cent ...

, Ponti's

Megalethoscope The megalethoscope is a larger version (''mega''-) of the alethoscope, (Italian: ''alethoscopio'', from the Greek “true”, “exact” and “vision”) which it largely superseded, and both are instruments for viewing single photographs with a ...

(1862), Rousell's

Graphoscope A graphoscope was a 19th-century device used in parlors in order to enhance the viewing of photographs and text. The graphoscope is supposed to be based on a 1864 patent of Charles John Rowsell. These novelty items consisted of a single magnify ...

(1864), Wheatstone's

stereoscope A stereoscope is a device for viewing a stereoscopic pair of separate images, depicting left-eye and right-eye views of the same scene, as a single three-dimensional image. A typical stereoscope provides each eye with a lens that makes the ima ...

(1832), and dead

Viewmaster View-Master is the trademark name of a line of special-format stereoscopes and corresponding View-Master "reels", which are thin cardboard disks containing seven Stereoscopic 3-D pairs of small transparent color photographs on film.Mary Ann & W ...

knockoffs. In 2009, artist

Garnet Hertz Garnet Hertz (born 1973) is a Canadian artist, designer and academic. Hertz is Canada Research Chair in Design and Media Art and is known for his electronic artworks and for his research in the areas of '' critical making'' and DIY culture. Work ...

published a bookwork project titled "A Collection of Many Problems (In Memory of the Dead Media Handbook)"A Collection of Many Problems (In Memory of the Dead Media Handbook)
/ref> which strived to fulfill some of

's vision for a handbook of obsolete media technologies. In the book, Hertz presents images of many of the media technologies compiled through the Dead Media mailing list and invites readers to submit their sketches and ideas of a Dead Media Handbook.

References

{{Reflist

External links

The Dead Media Project
"official" homepage

Dead Media Manifesto by

New Genre: Dead Media

Nettime Nettime is an internet mailing list proposed in 1995 by Geert Lovink and Pit Schultz (then half-jokingly called "the nettime brothers") at the second meeting of the " Medien Zentral Kommittee" during the Venice Biennale. Since 1998, Ted Byfi ...

post containing list by

Vancouver Film School Dead Media Page
(requires

Shockwave Player Adobe Shockwave Player (formerly Macromedia Shockwave Player, and also known as Shockwave for Director) is a discontinued freeware software plug-in for viewing multimedia and video games created on the Adobe Shockwave platform in web pages. Con ...

plugin)
"The Life and Death of Media" Speech
by Bruce Sterling, at the Sixth International Symposium on Electronic Art, Montreal Sept 19 1995

by Alessandro Ludovico, September 1998
CTheory Dead Media Project - An Interview with Bruce Sterling
by Arpad Bak, March 1999
A Collection of Many Problems (In Memory of the Dead Media Handbook)
bookwork project by

, 2009
Technodrom.cz
The largest collection of obsolete storage technologies in the world (permanent physical exhibition) located in Czech Republic. Organizations established in 1995 International artist groups and collectives Media studies Obsolete technologies

See also

References

External links