Thinkering

From comic to radio and back. The process of research as a media crossover experience.

HistorEsch is the overarching name for several public history projects that will be organised between 2021-2022 to actively involve the residents of Esch-sur-Alzette in the production of history.

Dronetv.lu is a plurilingual platform on the history of military, industrial and educational television.

There is more than just one East Berlin. People made very different experiences with the capital of the GDR. Hence there are also plenty of different memories of the East German capital. An exhibition on the history of East Berlin has to take these different perspectives into account and should be based on shared authority.

The Temporary History Lab, set up in the Annexe22 pavilion in Esch-sur-Alzette from September to October 2020, was part of the research project “Remixing Industrial Pasts in the Digital Age”.

The ongoing project WARLUX aims to study the biographies of young Luxembourgers, born between 1920 and 1927, who were drafted by the Nazi German authorities for the Labour Service (Reichsarbeitsdienst) and the German Army (Wehrmacht).

This is a preview of the Timecode Indexing Module (TIM) presented during the 2020 Oral History Association Annual Meeting.

On 15 September, the C²DH organised a round table discussion with various national players who are maintaining collections documenting how Luxembourg’s residents have experienced COVID-19.

The C²DH is organising a temporary history lab on the Place de la Résistance in Esch-sur-Alzette. The lab will host a number of participatory events to explore the history and identity of the Minett: participants can take a picture of themselves and learn more about the exciting history of the selfie, record a text for a loved one with our sound postcards and learn about this forgotten history and technology, and experience a fascinating video installation with “Historical Voices from Esch”.

A hands-on demonstration of the Kinora Viewer Replica. This public online event shows the fruits of a recent successful collaboration between the C²DH and the Department of Engineering. Combining historical inquiry with a hands-on and technical approach - involving the latest 3D modelling and desktop manufacturing engineering techniques - a media historian and two engineers joined forces to produce a working replica of a very special object in the history of (early) cinema: the Kinora viewer.

On 17-18 December 2019, the first workshop of the DEMA project - Doing Experimental Media Archaeology: Practice & Theory - project took place at the C²DH. For this workshop, specialists from the fields of media history, art history and the history of science were invited to share best practices and experiences in documenting hands-on and experimental research.

The actions against statues of historic figures involved in colonialism and its derivatives highlight the importance of critically confronting our past and rethinking our public space.

Earlier this year the REPAIR team invited fellow historians and friends to their first hands-on workshop: Repairing old radios and sensing history.

The documents from the Luxembourgish justice authorities, especially from the "cour d'assise", tell stories about blood and thunder, murder and thieves, but also reveal stories about people, their personal histories, and their struggles in everyday life.

En collectant des sources primaires nativement numériques comme les tweets, historiens et historiennes peuvent préparer l'écriture de l'histoire de la pandémie en cours. Quelques éléments sont livrés ici par Frédéric Clavert, professeur assistant en histoire contemporaine et spécialistes des réseaux sociaux numériques.

On 12 November, the REMIX team visited the town of Esch-sur-Alzette and the surrounding industrial sites. The visit was organised and guided by Denis Scuto, the C²DH Vice-Director and a true Escher at heart. In addition to its exploratory purposes, the full-day tour proved to be an excellent bonding experience for the REMIX team.

In this blog post, I present my post-doctoral research within the DEMA project in which I examine the genealogy of home cinema and amateur moviemaking as early-twentieth century practices by means of an experimental media archaeological approach.

In October, I traveled to Prague for a workshop on the history of science and the Second World War. For the second time during my PhD, it was an opportunity to cross the imaginary iron curtain. The experiences during those days were undoubtedly insightful.

From 26 to 29 June 2019, I participated in a conference in Tallinn (Estonia) organised by the International Society for Cultural History (ISCH), where, in addition, I presented a paper on cultural policy in Luxembourg. This experience was part of a quest to better understand cultural history and my own research.

The C²DH has signed an agreement with the “European Capital of Culture Esch 2022” asbl (non-profit organisation) for the research project “Remixing Industrial Pasts in the Digital Age: Sounds, Images, Ecologies, Practices and Materialities in Space and Time”.