Comment on Gabriel Moshenska: Reverse engineering and the archaeology of the modern world

Abstract

Gabriel Moshenska sets out an argument for the utility of applying the theories and practices of “reverse engineering” to archaeological work. Reverse engineering involves taking objects apart in order to understand the design processes that were in play to create the object. Within contemporary industrial production reverse engineering allows product replication. When a product comes to market, competitors can reverse engineer it in order to design their own versions. It is, therefore, a key practice of market competition. In this article Moshenska is interested in the ways in which reverse engineering might reveal some of the human and more-than-human messiness of these processes, in the never-smooth tacit knowledges at play. His contention is that similarities in the aims, methods and intended outcomes of archaeology and reverse engineering make it a productive space in which to work with and understand, in particular, modern technological artefacts.