This chapter is concerned with the experimental nature of media archaeology, an aspect of the discipline that is receiving a growing amount of attention. Since its inception, the study of media archaeology has encouraged a diversity of approaches, practices, and voices. Erik Huhtamo and Jussi Parikka describe this variety of perspectives and range of debates as ‘polylogues’ (Huhtamo and Parikka, p. 2). Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, seen as founders of media archaeological thinking, talked about the practice of ‘nomadology’– the adoption of multiple narratives that are, in effect, the ‘opposite of a history’ (Deleuze and Guattari, p. 24). Meanwhile, Siegfried Zielinski petitions for discovering ‘fractures or turning points in historical master plans’ (Zielinski, p. 7). His ‘variantology’ project (2007) is built on the urge to ‘be different, to deviate, to change, to modify’ (Huhtamo and Parikka, p. 12).

In 2013, Fickers and Van den Oever published an essay entitled ‘Experimental Media Archaeology: A Plea for New Directions’ (2013). The authors noted and praised the achievements made by the previous methodologies based on discourse, but at the same time stressed that ‘the materiality of media technologies and the practices of use need more attention’ (Fickers and Van den Oever, 2013).