Retro-Engineering and Alternative Histories: Possible Roads toward Media Archaeological Reconstruction

This article gives insight into research on media archaeological reconstruction of media and digital artworks. This experimental approach, illustrated by two practical cases, results in a duplication of the artworks within their original machines and languages. Based on retro-engineering, this approach is becoming a way to investigate the known, unknown and alternative stories by and for the machines, the goal being to produce archives, witnesses of the machines’ related history and inherent imaginary.