collecting culture and intellectual property
Had lunch with Ralph Maurer today. He researches organizational behavior and is interested in how people get attached to what they make, the ideas they have and such, and how this attachment may lead them to manage work and intellectual property without reference to economic gain. Economic relationships are embedded in all sorts of cultural [...]
The Brick Testament
In the light of my recent posts about creationism [Link], contemporary culture and the science wars [Link] and then the Barbie Doll Bronze Age [Link], Cornelius (Holtorf) has put me on to The Brick Testament. Yes – the Bible in lego bricks … The death of Jacob by The Reverend Brendan Powell Smith
landscape messaging – weaving collective stories
Randommedia, the UK based games/web design people, have a fascinating virtual world called Dreamdomain. You design yourself a “drone” – a flying insect, with a “blindwatchmaker” genetic algorithm and then off you go to fly round some very weird landscapes. The dots are messages – text, and video! But you are not at all alone [...]
Joseph Beuys and the archaeological
Tate Modern London. I am still reading today’s Arts section of the Guardian – this time Adrian Searle’s preview of the Tate Modern’s new exhibition of Joseph Beuys [Link] Beuys wasn’t being mischievous or disingenuous when he said there was nothing to understand (in his work). He may have been wrong to believe everyone could [...]
Iain Sinclair and the urban imaginary
A fine piece of writing from Iain Sinclair, a bit overblown maybe, in The Guardian today about the Thames in the urban imaginary that is London – Paint me a river. Liquid prompts guide our steps towards the scintillae of the supremely visible Thames. Here begins the work of poets and painters, their argument and [...]
archaeography.com
Archaeography – the new archaeology photoblog from Metamedia at Stanford – is up and running. [Link] This is how we describe the project Archaeography is a photoblog that explores the connections between photography and archaeology. This is not some quirky juxtaposition – we are convinced that photography is profoundly archaeological, and that archaeography is about [...]
From Ben Cullen to Stephen Shennan on memes
On the anniversary of the death of Ben Cullen. [Link] His parents visited us this summer. Richard (Cullen) has taken up archaeology himself. It was a very poignant afternoon – lunch in our garden here in Stanford, talking of Ben in Wales and Australia. Ben would have been forty. Molly (six) and our own Ben [...]
found photos – portraits and physiognomy
In Boing Boing today – found photos from the Arkansas State Prison 1915-1937 – [Link] I liked the caption: In 1975, documentary artist Bruce Jackson found a bunch of old prison photos in a drawer in the Arkansas penitentiary. The people being photographed have no interest in the photographs being made; the people making the [...]
Derrida’s archaeology
9 October I never got to finish my comment on Derrida who died last week. [BBC Link] The obituaries were largely stifled by misunderstanding, outrage, horror and incredulity – have a look at the Guradian’s lamentable list – [Link] Mark Taylor was better in the NYT – [Link] Jacques Derrida Flying back to the US [...]
everyday horror and repressive normality
An archaeological sensibility I regularly post about the horror that lies just beneath the surface of things, everyday normality rooted in the uncanny secret lives of things – have a look at Horror and disclosure – a scene of crime clings to its past Joe (Adler) has just sent me word of Die Familie Schneider [...]
media archaeology meets theatre/archaeology
Media archaeology – working on the traces of a medium. Theatre/archaeology – the (re)articulation of traces of the past as real-time event. 10×10 / 100 Words and Pictures that Define the Time / by Jonathan J. Harris 10×10 (’ten by ten’) is an interactive exploration of the words and pictures that define the time. The [...]
more fantasy archaeology
– the never-ending search for the Holy Grail … The BBC is reporting what looks like another publicity scam Fascination with the Holy Grail has lasted for centuries, and now the Bletchley Park code-breakers have joined the hunt. But what is it that’s made the grail the definition of something humans are always searching for [...]
Robert Sarmast – more junk about Atlantis
More fantasy archaeology in the news. Robert Sarmast has modelled underwater topographic data and sees the remains of a city. Sarmast’s Atlantis This underwater geology has been well researched and is understood as volcanic activity ([Link] [Link]). But the pictures have far more rhetorical force. As does Sarmast’s own story of the rogue amateur who [...]
Michael Herzfeld on comparative ethnography
Comparing one society with another Michael Herzfeld was talking today about ethnography, about the centrality of comparison. His latest work is to compare Greece with Italy with Thailand. Michael Herzfeld at Stanford today Many anthropologists have become anxious about the comparative method, because comparing one society with another with the aim of understanding each through [...]
Media trips – digital trash and garbology
A new blog devoted to remix and sampling – Media trips Here’s an entry of theirs from October 20 – Check out the newly posted projects at the recently launched online exhibition Digital Recycling at The Stunned Net Art Open 2004, where one person’s trash is another’s treasure trove: What’s more, you can participate by [...]
Mike Pearson and theatre/archaeology
Mike Pearson, performance artist, was in Stanford this week. We wrote the book Theatre/Archaeology together. He talked to our New Media Workshop about recent work of his, and then to the Archaeology Center about his research into what really went on in the expeditions to the Antarctic back in the early 1900s. Both were provocative. [...]
Fred Dibnah – industrial archaeologist
Fred Dibnah has died [Link] [Picture Link - BBC] Steeple Jack turned uncanny acolyte of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, he knocked down chimney remnants of Victorian industrial England with a style and passion matched only by his love of steam engines. Now industrial archaeology is dogged by rather geekinsh character types who love brass fittings and [...]
the aesthetics of the archive
Abram (Stern) was through at Stanford last night talking to our Mellon Workshop in New Media about net.art – here is the talk in his wiki – [link] There are many interesting matters for an archaeologist – net.art’s focus on broken bits of computer code, frequent nostalgia for older art forms, reuse of media fragments. [...]
a new species of homo?
The discovery of remains of another species of homo that lived alongside modern humans only 18 or even 13 thousand years ago is everywhere today – Guardian Unlimited | Life | “From 18,000 years ago, the one metre-tall human that challenges history of evolution” – a new “hobbit” species found on the Indonesian island of [...]
Michael Casson – studio potter – 1925-2003
In class this morning I ran a google search for a picture of Mycenaean marine style pottery, and it turned up an obituary for Michael Casson, the studio potter. He was a giant in the world of craft pottery, a pioneer of 20th century studio ceramics, and a lovely man. He died last December. We [...]
Steve McQueen, San Francisco and the 2005 Ford Mustang
More media archaeology Chris (Witmore) put me onto this item in Yahoo! News – Mustang Ads Feature Late Steve McQueen. Ford is to resurrect Steve McQueen in its promotional campaign for the new 2005 Mustang. They did this in the UK a few years back – clever cuts of footage from Bullitt – the very [...]
Ancient Corinth and the stories archaeologists tell of the past
Ok, it’s quite an obscure source for archaeological news of Europe – NEWS.com.au – but they are running a headline at the moment about the discovery of two large sarcophagi in ancient Corinth. The story is that they are so big that ancient Greeks in 900BCE can’t have done it using only human power but [...]
Why fakes and counterfeit pasts are fascinating
A couple of things last week have got me thinking about an old fascination of mine – fakes and ideas of authenticity. My angle – some notions of authentic reality and truth can be quite mischievous and misleading! And lying can be liberating! It started in the Washington Post – Sure, It’s Real! Real Fake [...]