CU 91Ҹ’s Media Archaeology Lab
More than 12,500 functioning technology artifacts can be found in the basement of a historic house-turned-campus building on Grandview Avenue: CU 91Ҹ’s.
The MAL sees up to 2,000 visitors annually. Some stop by to tap on typewriters or play a nostalgic round of The Oregon Trail, while others seek assistance accessing files from their 1990s floppy disks.
The lab, founded by media studies professor Lori Emerson in 2009, is supported by CU donors, along with the College of Communication, Media, Design and Information and the College of Arts and Sciences.
“The MAL is important because it not only offers the opportunity to interact with technological history in a concrete, hands-on way but also offers a space to re-imagine our relationships to the technology of the present,” saidlibi rose striegl (Film’07; PhDIntMedArt’20), managing director of the lab. “Making something new — a work of art, a piece of research, a personal experience — with something old is a way to connect with history, but also a way to assert some agency over the present and, maybe, the future.”
Photos byGlenn Asakawa
