Between Human and Machine
The Operating System
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jca.v2i1.28283Keywords:
ADAPT project, film, history, media archaeology, operating system, technology, televisionAbstract
This paper argues for an approach to the archaeology of technology that examines how skilled practitioners use technologies, using as an example “simulations” which reunite retired equipment with the people who used to use it and film the encounter. It proposes the metaphor of the “operating system” to highlight the mutual adaptation of human and machine in such circumstances, revealed through the filming of these encounters. An “operating system” transforms an artfully constructed assemblage of hardware materials into a productive mechanism. It exists between human and machine, and not in either party exclusively.
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Big UK Domain Data for the Arts and Humanities Project. 2014. “Aims and Objectives.” Available online: http://buddah.projects.history.ac.uk/about/aims-and-objectives/
Brügger, N. 2011. “Web Archiving – Between Past, Present and Future.” In The Handbook of Internet Studies, edited by M. Consalvo and C. Ess, 24–42, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781444314861.ch2
____. 2012. “Web Historiography and Internet Studies: Challenges and Perspectives.” New Media & Society 15(5): 752–764. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1461444812462852
Cowls, J. 2014. “Recreational Bugs: The Limits Of Representing The Past Through Web Archives.” Available online: http://buddah.projects.history.ac.uk/2014/06/20/341/
Dappert, A. 2015. “UK Web Archiving Consortium (UKWAC).” Available online: http://www.dpconline.org/advice/web-archiving
de Silva, M. and J. Henderson. 2011. “Sustainability in Conservation Practice” Journal of the Institute of Conservation, 34(1): 5–15. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19455224.2011.566013
Elton, M. C. J., and J. Carey. 2013 “The Prehistory of the Internet and its Traces in the Present: Implications for the Future.” In The Oxford Handbook Of Internet Studies edited by W. H. Dutton, 27–47. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Foot, K. A. and S. M. Schneider. 2006. Web Campaigning. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Jeffrey, S. 2012. “A New Digital Dark Age? Collaborative Web Tools, Social Media and Long-Term Preservation.” World Archaeology 44(4): 553–570. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2012.737579
Law, M. and C. Morgan. 2014. “The Archaeology of Digital Abandonment: Online Sustainability and Archaeological Sites.” Present Pasts 6(1): 2. http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/pp.58
Lievrouw, L. A. 2012. “The Next Decade in Internet Time: Ways Ahead for New Media Studies.” Information, Communication & Society 15(5): 616–638. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2012.675691
Richards, J. D. 2002. “Digital Preservation and Access.” European Journal of Archaeology 5(3): 343–366. http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/eja.2002.5.3.343
____., T. Austin and C. Hardman. 2010. “Covering the Costs of Digital Curation.” Heritage Management 3(2): 255–263. http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/hso.2010.3.2.255
Richardson, L.-J. 2014. “Public Archaeology in A Digital Age.” PhD thesis, University College London.
Schlanger, N. 2002. “Ancestral Archives: Explorations in the History Of Archaeology.” Antiquity 76(291): 127–131. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00089882
____. 2004. “The Past is in the Present: On the History and Archives Of Archaeology.” Modernism/Modernity 11(1): 165–167. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/mod.2004.0023
____. and J. Nordbladh. 2008. Archives, Ancestors, Practices. New York: Berghahn Books.
UK Web Archive 2015. Website. Available online: http://www.webarchive.org.uk/ukwa/
Van Den Heuvel, C. 2010. “Web Archiving in Research and Historical Global Collaboratories.” In Web History, edited by N. Brügger, 279–303. New York: Peter Lang.
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Published
2015-09-02
Issue
Section
Extended Forum
How to Cite
Ellis, J. (2015). Between Human and Machine: The Operating System. Journal of Contemporary Archaeology, 2(1), S24-S27. https://doi.org/10.1558/jca.v2i1.28283
