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MAlMö uNIvERSITy
205 06 MAlMö, SwEDEN
www.MAh.SE
KRISTOffER GANSING
TRANSvERSAl MEDIA
PRAcTIcES
Media Archaeology, Art and Technological Development
How do media technologies develop over time? This is a basic proble-
matic of technological development. In this context, the dissertation
Transversal Media Practices does not provide any easy answers but
offers the reader a set of tools that points to the imaginary, residual and
renewable dimensions of media in our contemporary network culture.
The study unfolds through two case-studies. In the first, The World’s
Last Television Studio, artists and activists are negotiating the socio-
cultural and material changes of the “old” and institutionalised mass
medium of Television. In the second case study, The Art of the Over-
head, another old medium is engaged: the overhead projector, a quint-
essential 20th century institutional medium here presented as a device
for “reverse-remediation” – of rethinking the new through the old.
The dissertation follows a methodology of integrated theory and
practice where Media archaeology is deployed as an interventionist,
transversal discipline for cultural analysis and production that investi-
gates the problematic of technological development.
978-91-7104-481-5
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viewer could easily overview and get in tune with the regularised
scheduling of pre-24 hour and state-monopoly television. But this
synchronisation extended to the technical level as well, analogue
television being based in a so called “symmetrical” system: audio
and video are sent according to specific frequencies, the encoding
of which has to correspond with the technical receivers way of de-
coding, that is a scanning process aided by syncpulses for the hori-
zontal and vertical planes (Gupta, 2006; Bellander, 1969). As Bel-
lander writes about this symmetrical ecology of analogue television
back in 1969:
The heart of the studio <<image department>> is the synchroni-
sation-generator or the syncgenerator as one usually calls it. In
it, the sync-pulses are formed, needed for the synchronisation of
the scanning process of cameras and other apparatus of the
transmitter image-scanning with the corresponding scanning of
the tube in the receiver-system. (Bellander, 1969, p. 22, my
trans.)
This symmetrical relationship between the transmitter and receiver
on the technical side also contributes to the possibility seized upon
by low-tech analogue pirate-TV projects25, that, similar to what
Brecht (1926) already proposed in relation to the medium of radio,
every receiver is potentially also a transmitter. This is different
from the technological foundation of the digital broadcasting era
where the sending and receiving of images and sounds no longer
need to be so linearly synchronised. We can see this shift directly
affecting also the level of use, as in the shift from broadcasting to
so called “narrowcasting” where the viewer can choose to
download podcasts or other media content to be viewed at other
times (and on different convergent platforms) than that of their
“original” transmission.
When analog television was developed, no affordable technology
for storing any video signals existed; the luminance signal has to
25 Such as the “Micro-TV” movement initiated by Japanese artist Tetsuo Kogawa in the 1980s (Ko-
gawa, n.d.).
176
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177
be generated and transmitted at the same time at which it is dis-
played on the CRT. It is therefore essential to keep the raster
scanning in the camera (or other device for producing the signal)
in exact synchronization with the scanning in the television.
(Analog television, 2013)
The asymmetrical relationship between transmission and reception
of DVB-T digital (television) broadcasting and other associated
digital transmission systems such as DTT is built on a process
which in industry terms goes under the name of “smart encoding /
dumb decoding” (Pic. 4.7). The heart of this process is not the
sync-pulse generator of the analogue TV-Studio, but the Interna-
tional standard for digital video known as MPEG. Developed by
the Motion Pictures Expert Group (MPEG), this is a technology
that allows for the standardised compression and transmission of
sounds and images, hence the common reference to standards such
as these as “codecs”, denoting their double function of compres-
sion and decompression (Mackenzie, 2008; Cubitt 2008) or in
other terms: en-coding and decoding. MPEG, as the standard most
widely adopted in the transition to digital television broadcasting
around the globe, allows through digital compression for the above
discussed function of “multiplexing”. This is the transmission of
several compressed channels of audio and video within the same
(digital) airborn signal, significantly increasing the possible number
of TV-channels and/or the image/sound quality of transmissions.
177
Page 356
D
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S
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: N
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w
M
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D
IA
, P
u
b
l
Ic
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P
h
E
R
E
S
, A
N
D
f
O
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M
S
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f
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P
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S
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R
IS
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f
f
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G
A
N
S
IN
G
M
A
l
M
ö
u
N
Iv
E
R
S
IT
y
2
0
1
3
MAlMö uNIvERSITy
205 06 MAlMö, SwEDEN
www.MAh.SE
KRISTOffER GANSING
TRANSvERSAl MEDIA
PRAcTIcES
Media Archaeology, Art and Technological Development
How do media technologies develop over time? This is a basic proble-
matic of technological development. In this context, the dissertation
Transversal Media Practices does not provide any easy answers but
offers the reader a set of tools that points to the imaginary, residual and
renewable dimensions of media in our contemporary network culture.
The study unfolds through two case-studies. In the first, The World’s
Last Television Studio, artists and activists are negotiating the socio-
cultural and material changes of the “old” and institutionalised mass
medium of Television. In the second case study, The Art of the Over-
head, another old medium is engaged: the overhead projector, a quint-
essential 20th century institutional medium here presented as a device
for “reverse-remediation” – of rethinking the new through the old.
The dissertation follows a methodology of integrated theory and
practice where Media archaeology is deployed as an interventionist,
transversal discipline for cultural analysis and production that investi-
gates the problematic of technological development.
978-91-7104-481-5
T
R
A
N
S
v
E
R
S
A
l
M
E
D
IA
P
R
A
c
T
Ic
E
S
D
IS
S
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A
T
IO
N
: N
E
w
M
E
D
IA
, P
u
b
l
Ic
S
P
h
E
R
E
S
, A
N
D
f
O
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S
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P
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S
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R
IS
T
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f
E
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G
A
N
S
IN
G
M
A
l
M
ö
u
N
Iv
E
R
S
IT
y
2
0
1
3
MAlMö uNIvERSITy
205 06 MAlMö, SwEDEN
www.MAh.SE
KRISTOffER GANSING
TRANSvERSAl MEDIA
PRAcTIcES
Media Archaeology, Art and Technological Development
How do media technologies develop over time? This is a basic proble-
matic of technological development. In this context, the dissertation
Transversal Media Practices does not provide any easy answers but
offers the reader a set of tools that points to the imaginary, residual and
renewable dimensions of media in our contemporary network culture.
The study unfolds through two case-studies. In the first, The World’s
Last Television Studio, artists and activists are negotiating the socio-
cultural and material changes of the “old” and institutionalised mass
medium of Television. In the second case study, The Art of the Over-
head, another old medium is engaged: the overhead projector, a quint-
essential 20th century institutional medium here presented as a device
for “reverse-remediation” – of rethinking the new through the old.
The dissertation follows a methodology of integrated theory and
practice where Media archaeology is deployed as an interventionist,
transversal discipline for cultural analysis and production that investi-
gates the problematic of technological development.
978-91-7104-481-5
T
R
A
N
S
v
E
R
S
A
l
M
E
D
IA
P
R
A
c
T
Ic
E
S
Page 178
176
viewer could easily overview and get in tune with the regularised
scheduling of pre-24 hour and state-monopoly television. But this
synchronisation extended to the technical level as well, analogue
television being based in a so called “symmetrical” system: audio
and video are sent according to specific frequencies, the encoding
of which has to correspond with the technical receivers way of de-
coding, that is a scanning process aided by syncpulses for the hori-
zontal and vertical planes (Gupta, 2006; Bellander, 1969). As Bel-
lander writes about this symmetrical ecology of analogue television
back in 1969:
The heart of the studio <<image department>> is the synchroni-
sation-generator or the syncgenerator as one usually calls it. In
it, the sync-pulses are formed, needed for the synchronisation of
the scanning process of cameras and other apparatus of the
transmitter image-scanning with the corresponding scanning of
the tube in the receiver-system. (Bellander, 1969, p. 22, my
trans.)
This symmetrical relationship between the transmitter and receiver
on the technical side also contributes to the possibility seized upon
by low-tech analogue pirate-TV projects25, that, similar to what
Brecht (1926) already proposed in relation to the medium of radio,
every receiver is potentially also a transmitter. This is different
from the technological foundation of the digital broadcasting era
where the sending and receiving of images and sounds no longer
need to be so linearly synchronised. We can see this shift directly
affecting also the level of use, as in the shift from broadcasting to
so called “narrowcasting” where the viewer can choose to
download podcasts or other media content to be viewed at other
times (and on different convergent platforms) than that of their
“original” transmission.
When analog television was developed, no affordable technology
for storing any video signals existed; the luminance signal has to
25 Such as the “Micro-TV” movement initiated by Japanese artist Tetsuo Kogawa in the 1980s (Ko-
gawa, n.d.).
176
Page 179
177
be generated and transmitted at the same time at which it is dis-
played on the CRT. It is therefore essential to keep the raster
scanning in the camera (or other device for producing the signal)
in exact synchronization with the scanning in the television.
(Analog television, 2013)
The asymmetrical relationship between transmission and reception
of DVB-T digital (television) broadcasting and other associated
digital transmission systems such as DTT is built on a process
which in industry terms goes under the name of “smart encoding /
dumb decoding” (Pic. 4.7). The heart of this process is not the
sync-pulse generator of the analogue TV-Studio, but the Interna-
tional standard for digital video known as MPEG. Developed by
the Motion Pictures Expert Group (MPEG), this is a technology
that allows for the standardised compression and transmission of
sounds and images, hence the common reference to standards such
as these as “codecs”, denoting their double function of compres-
sion and decompression (Mackenzie, 2008; Cubitt 2008) or in
other terms: en-coding and decoding. MPEG, as the standard most
widely adopted in the transition to digital television broadcasting
around the globe, allows through digital compression for the above
discussed function of “multiplexing”. This is the transmission of
several compressed channels of audio and video within the same
(digital) airborn signal, significantly increasing the possible number
of TV-channels and/or the image/sound quality of transmissions.
177
Page 356
D
IS
S
E
R
T
A
T
IO
N
: N
E
w
M
E
D
IA
, P
u
b
l
Ic
S
P
h
E
R
E
S
, A
N
D
f
O
R
M
S
O
f
E
x
P
R
E
S
S
IO
N
K
R
IS
T
O
f
f
E
R
G
A
N
S
IN
G
M
A
l
M
ö
u
N
Iv
E
R
S
IT
y
2
0
1
3
MAlMö uNIvERSITy
205 06 MAlMö, SwEDEN
www.MAh.SE
KRISTOffER GANSING
TRANSvERSAl MEDIA
PRAcTIcES
Media Archaeology, Art and Technological Development
How do media technologies develop over time? This is a basic proble-
matic of technological development. In this context, the dissertation
Transversal Media Practices does not provide any easy answers but
offers the reader a set of tools that points to the imaginary, residual and
renewable dimensions of media in our contemporary network culture.
The study unfolds through two case-studies. In the first, The World’s
Last Television Studio, artists and activists are negotiating the socio-
cultural and material changes of the “old” and institutionalised mass
medium of Television. In the second case study, The Art of the Over-
head, another old medium is engaged: the overhead projector, a quint-
essential 20th century institutional medium here presented as a device
for “reverse-remediation” – of rethinking the new through the old.
The dissertation follows a methodology of integrated theory and
practice where Media archaeology is deployed as an interventionist,
transversal discipline for cultural analysis and production that investi-
gates the problematic of technological development.
978-91-7104-481-5
T
R
A
N
S
v
E
R
S
A
l
M
E
D
IA
P
R
A
c
T
Ic
E
S
