With media treated as modes of engagement we transcend how they are normally understood, in my discipline of archaeology, for example, as passive tools—as simply means to an end. That is, as accepted mimetic instruments to effect correspondance to phenomena of the world. Aspects, of course, are sometimes usefully represented - such as abstract spatical relationships of the map, for instance, so central as the organizing medium in archaeological methods (see mapwork). But in getting - at the end stage of theodolite surveying, elevation measurement or GPS-to-GIS plotting of locational information - to the map, only selected-for traits of the physical world have been brought along. These tend to be the most useful for integration of later archaeological information - on the site map. We want to draw attention to the whole spectrum of negotiations with technology and decisions which cumulatively enable the map as an end product. As a tool it embodies a host of negotiations to fulfill a purpose - a means to an end. Media are both the means and the end. As modes of engagement we recognize their action. As modes of engagement we treat media as dynamic entities, as actants within our collective practice.

Refer to Witmore 2004: Four archaeological engagements with place: Mediating bodily experience through peripatetic video. Visual Anthropology Review 20(2), 57-72..

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