Is it really only February?

We're not sure we believe it... Anyhow, happy MAL-entines!

We've only got a few news-y bits this month but first up, something fun! Camila Galaz, a visiting artist and long-time friend of the MAL made some print-and-fold-able Valentines cards using (emulated) Print Shop and text from her research into the use of roses in computer advertising in the 1980s. If you can stop by during open house, we'll have some of them printed out for you to grab at both the main lab and in the CASE W250 pop-up space next week (February 9 - 13). Or, you can print them out yourself - the files are hosted here: https://mediaarchaeologylab.neocities.org/ . We'll also have our limited-edition heart shaped stickers out at both locations all month! Get 'em before they're gone...

MAL founder & director Lori was interviewed by Fast Company about the lab for an article about us and labs like us - find that here: https://www.fastcompany.com/91483774/these-historic-computing-labs-teach-kids-what-technology-was-like-before-phones-social-media-and-the-cloud

The first Practitioner in Residence for this year's cohort, Katherine Guiness, will be in the lab at the end of the month. Katherine Guinness (she/her) is a theorist and historian of contemporary art. She is Assistant Professor of Critical Studies in the Department of Art at the University of Maryland, College Park. Previously, she was Assistant Professor and Director of Art History at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs (UCCS), where she also served as the academic director of the downtown Gallery of Contemporary Art (or GOCA). She is the author of Schizogensis: The Art of Rosemarie Trockel (University of Minnesota Press, 2019), co-author of The Influencer Factory: A Marxist Theory of Corporate Personhood on YouTube (Stanford University Press, 2024), and co-author of Contemporary Absurdities, Existential Crises, and Visual Art (Intellect, 2024). She has been a guest editor for Art Journal Open and is the co-founder of FEARS, the Female Emerging Artist Residency Series, at UCCS.

And finally, MAL Pal Spike did some testing with the C64 Ultimate in the lab to see how well it performs with vintage peripherals and add-ons. Findings from those tests will be reported back to inform future updates.

As always, you can find us in the main lab space or the CASE W250 pop-up space during open house hours - and online far too frequently.

more soon!

-MAL