Dead Technologies

The magic lantern, zoetrope, passenger pigeon, typewriter, and Brownie camera live with us today in different forms. These technologies may be dead, but they are not buried. What can we learn about the tools of the present and possibilities for the future by studying the innovations of the past? In this seminar, we will approach research as a creative process and mine historic technologies, works, and documents in preparation for our writing. We will comb through ephemera, visit an archive and a typewriter museum, learn modern tools for video editing and image manipulation, build our own microphones, and develop a magic lantern performance.