Thinkering

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”.

Professor Dr Sean Takats, an internationally renowned expert on digital history, will start his research work in Luxembourg in October 2019, backed by an FNR PEARL Chair from the Luxembourg National Research Fund. The PEARL programme, funded by the FNR, provides competitive funding to attract top researchers in strategic research areas for Luxembourg.

How can computer-assisted methods help us to solve problems that are fundamental to historical research? In a series of two blog posts we discuss a research pilot that aims to identify anti-modernist discourses on Europe in historical Swiss newspapers from the period 1939-1945.

In September 2019, C²DH will launch the DEMA project which will provide a systematic reflection on the methodological underpinnings of experimental media archaeology as a practical and sensorial approach to media historiography.

Lecture by Jakub Mlynář (Malach Center for Visual History, Charles University) followed by a workshop on sociological aspects of oral history.

On 19 and 20 March, the C²DH hosted a two-day hands-on workshop on the use of interactive digital storytelling for academic historians with Sandra Gaudenzi, one of the leading experts in interactive storytelling and a senior lecturer at the University of Westminster.

The European Commission has chosen Time Machine as one of the six proposals retained for preparing large scale research initiatives to be strategically developed in the next decade. The C²DH/University of Luxembourg is a member of the Time Machine consortium.

After launching the Ranke.2 teaching platform on digital source criticism in autumn 2018, I assumed that its appearance and form – short colourful animations and easy-to-digest chunks of information – would soon catch the attention of lecturers and encourage them to use it in their courses. But a recent meeting with colleagues made me realise that personal contact and hands-on experience with the material are key to making my target audience realise that the resource offers something they may need.

This report summarises a C²DH-hosted workshop concerning some undervalued and overlooked aspects of technology.

This entry briefly describes how we generated English subtitles (using digital tools) for the binaural radio play "Glanz und Elend der Kunstkopf-Stereophonie" we produced in 2017.