This publication came out of the artistic research project Dialogues With Machines and narrates Joost Rekveld’s personal experience of such a dialogue while making the experimental film Mechanisms Common to Disparate Phenomena; #59. Historical analogue computing and simulation techniques were re-enacted, old electronic machines were sought out and cared for, and new devices were developed, based on principles that have long fallen out of use. During this process the dialogue changed, the notion of learning from machines changed, and Rekveld’s views on technology, mathematics, and media archaeology were also transformed as a result. This led to a perspective on the relation between humans and machines that is not predicated on control. Joost Rekveld is an experimental filmmaker and media artist based in Brussels.

Our technical milieu is a collective product, a long-term external memory to which each generation contributes. We cannot act or think without it, and the design and development of our technology is therefore a form of politics that shapes our life-world, our planet and ourselves. During this project, media archaeology became an approach to investigating this collective construction. Conversely, it led to an understanding of films, installations, talks, and writings as small gestures that may contribute to shaping it.

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