"Globalizing Media Archaeology: Problems and Promises"
Date: 6 July 2026
Time: 4.30 - 5.30 pm
Location: TBC, Rodestraat 14, 2000 Antwerp (University of Antwerp city campus)
Media archaeology originated in the Western world, more specifically in Europe. Is it possible to break out from its Eurocentric origins and Western focal points to practice it from glocal (global + local) perspectives? How can its principles be applied to non-Western contexts, and to cross-cultural exchanges of ideas and motifs? These are questions cultural anthropologists are familiar with, but media scholars have barely touched upon. This lecture tackles them by concentrating on the migrations of topoi, culturally coded commonplaces, across cultural and ethnic boundaries. What happens when a topos crosses a linguistic, racial, and ideological border? Who controls it? How do topoi react to language barriers, divergent behavioral norms and code systems, and incompatible visual traditions, values, attitudes, and ideologies? These unresolved issues are among the most crucial media archaeologists are currently facing.
About Erkki Huhtamo
Erkki Huhtamo is Professor of Design Media Arts, and Film, Television, and Digital Media at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). He is a world renowned media scholar and a founding figure of media archaeology. He is also a major collector of items related to the early history of visual media. Professor Huhtamo has lectured worldwide, curated exhibitions, directed television programmes, and published widely in over ten languages. His most important book to date is Illusions in Motion: Media Archaeology of the Moving Panorama and Related Spectacles (The MIT Press, 2013).