Literary scholar and media theorist Friedrich Kittler confessed that it took him a long time to understand the concept of media archaeology. Instead of focusing on a linear historiography of media, Kittler suggests a “recursive history.” Siegfried Zielinski also opts for an experimental, nonlinear scientific working method. What does this other, unconventional historiography of video art look like? And how does the medium of video reflect its own history and hybridization?

Ina Blom is a professor at the Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas at the University of Oslo and Wigeland Visiting Professor in the Department of Art History at the University of Chicago. Recent books include The Autobiography of Video. The Life and Times of a Memory Technology (2016) and On the Style Site. Art, Sociality and Media Culture (2007/2009).

Siegfried Zielinski is Michel Foucault Professor for Media Archaeology and Techno Culture at the European Graduate School (EGS) in Saas Fee. Until 2016 he was Professor for Media Theory/Archaeology and Variantology of Arts and Media at the UdK Berlin, as well as Director of the Vilém Flusser Archive at UdK. He is the author of Zur Geschichte des Videorecorders (1985) and Archäologie der Medien (2002), amongst others.

Moderated by Ana Teixeira Pinto, writer and cultural theorist. She is a lecturer at the DAI (Dutch Art Institute) and a research fellow at Leuphana Universität Lüneburg. Her writings have appeared in publications such as Afterall, Springerin, Camera Austria, e-flux journal, art-agenda, Mousse, frieze, Domus, or Texte zur Kunst, amongst others. Pinto is based in Berlin.