The Virtual Laboratory: Essays and Resources on the Experimentalization of Life, 1830–1930

The Virtual Laboratory (VL) was a digitization project devoted to the history of the experimentalization of life. Its main focus was the interaction between the life sciences, arts and architecture, media and technology. It consisted of two related parts: an archive and an essay section. As an archive, the VL offers numerous scans of texts and images concerning experiments, instruments, buildings, scientists, and artists between 1830 and 1930. The essay section constitutes a platform where historians of science, culture, and technology, as well as students, can present their recent research on the experimentalization of life and explore new modes of writing history.