cultural values – media and heritage
Today – lunch in the House of Commons with Alan Campbell MP, a member of the last Labour UK Government, a leading political representative in the north east of England, a historian. Our discussion: local and regional identity, culture and economic development in the region – how these topics inform our excavation at Binchester, our [...]
Binchester 2011 – the team
A week into the field season at Binchester – a field trip to the central section of Hadrian’s Wall. Here is the team – click on the image for a bigger version.
writing ancient Egypt
I have just received a copy of Toby Wilkinson’s Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt. The cover endorsements are enthusiastic; the blurb is packed with hyperbole and the promise of a roller-coaster soap-opera of pomp and ceremony, corruption and decadence, rulers with all-too-recognizable human emotions, in a book that will, we are told, become the [...]
archaeological research at the edge of empire
This appeared under the title Edges of Empire – the new excavations at Binchester Roman town, UK in the 2010 opening edition of the online magazine Electrum – [Link] Gary Devore and Michael Shanks Binchester Barrack block turned abattoir – the late cattle ranch in the corner of the fort. The town extended beyond over [...]
VINOVIVM
Update – a revised version now appears at – http://www.mshanks.com/2011/01/archaeological-research-at-the-edge-of-empire/ We are starting to plan for our excavations next summer of Binchester Roman town in the north of England. Here is a short news item about this last summer, released yesterday. July 2010 was the second archaeological field season for the Binchester Project. We are [...]
Archaeology in risk society
Chris Witmore and I have a paper in “Unquiet Pasts” – the new book from Ashgate edited by Stephanie Koerner and Ian Russell – [Link] It is my latest presentation of the argument for a living past, a transitive past, tied now to a call for attention to matters of common and pressing human concern. [...]
d.ethnography
In Tokyo for EPIC – Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference. 6th edition. [Link] Wonderful comment this morning from Victoria Bellotti (PARC) – that archaeology is dethnography Absolutely – (d)ethnography – d.ethnography – the intermingling of dreams and mortality, utopia and the realities of material constraints, the angel of death whispering in the ear of aspiration. [...]
Hadrian’s Wall | Stanegate | Vindolanda
(Use the controls to navigate through the panorama.) In the North East of England for the Binchester excavations – Vinovium.org. Just to the north of our site. Looking southwest, the Stanegate (Roman, named “stone road” in early medieval times) runs from the left of the picture, through the fort of Vindolanda and then straight up [...]
Binchester 2010
The excavations of Binchester – Vinovium – continue this month as the international team arrive from Stanford, Texas Tech and a host of other universities. Community involvement is substantial this year too, with 20 people a week joining the project. website – Vinovium.org website – dur.ac.uk/binchester.fort blog – binchester.blogspot.com/
Dere Street | Chew Green
In the North East of England for the Binchester excavations – Vinovium.org. Dere Street, the Roman road that passes through Binchester, here runs north across what is now the English-Scottish border. There was a medieval village – Kemblepath – up here in the wilds of Upper Coquetdale. On the site of Chew Green, the Roman [...]
spectral stone
The Coquet Valley in Northumberland is fascinating me. [Link] Around Lordenshaws, across from the market town of Rothbury, are many carved rock surfaces, typically associated with farming communities from the fourth to and millennia BCE, maybe earlier and maybe later. Birky Hill I met Stan Beckensall, school teacher in Rothbury, rock art enthusiast, some thirty [...]
Coquetdale
In the North East of England for the Binchester excavations – Vinovium.org. Coquetdale – a remarkable valley to the north of Hadrian’s Wall. A fascinating archaeological landscape. Lordenshaws – prehistoric rock carvings and hill fort. Shillmoor – from when the borders settled down in the eighteenth century. Harbottle – feudal border stronghold, motte and bailey; [...]
archaeology – design
This post is in a series of commentaries on a class running at Stanford, Winter Quarter 2010 – “Transformative Design” ENGR 231 – [Link] Everyday detritus – Roman – the indeterminate quotidian Today I ran a session about archaeology and design. (A tighter focus than my recent case for pragmatology and pragmatogony – [Link]) I [...]
fields not objects
This post is in a series of commentaries on a class running at Stanford, Winter Quarter 2010 – “Transformative Design” ENGR 231 – [Link] Pragmatology [Link] – the (non-existent) discipline of things – doesn’t deal in objects. Things are not discrete, but nodes, gatherings of otherwise distributed flows, relations – fields of connection, not objects [...]
archaeology > design
This post is in a series of commentaries on a class running at Stanford, Winter Quarter 2010 – “Transformative Design” ENGR 231 – [Link] Pragmatology and Pragmatogony I like to say that archaeologists deal in the history of people’s relationships with stuff, with things. And this covers a lot – basically 150,000 years of human [...]
design thinking – House MD and the eureka moment
This post is in a series of commentaries on a class running at Stanford, Winter Quarter 2010 – “Transformative Design” ENGR 231 – [Link] The diagnostician – a contemporary archetype – Gregory House MD [Link] Design thinking is problem oriented and human centered. The aim is to identify needs, often not even recognized and requiring [...]
design thinking – pragmatics
This post is in a series of commentaries on a class running at Stanford, Winter Quarter 2010 – “Transformative Design” ENGR 231 – [Link] Design thinking is a systematic process for generating innovation. Last week we offered a crash course – learning by doing – designing a briefcase – [Link] Design thinking is a pragmatics, [...]
designers – the archetype – Odysseus
This post is in a series of commentaries on a class running at Stanford, Winter Quarter 2010 – “Transformative Design” ENGR 231 – [Link] Today I got to thinking about the character type of the “designer”. Not so much a craftsperson or artisan, nor an inventor, nor a fine artist. Someone attuned to particular circumstances, [...]
VINOVIVM
Our project to explore the Roman town of Binchester – Vinovium – reached the news at Stanford today – [Link] The report took an appropriately student-centered focus. And we certainly had a wonderful team last year. Project site – VINOVIVM.ORG
military occupation – the Roman experience
Our excavations of Binchester Roman town are underway. VINOVIVM.ORG A key question for me – just what was the character of military occupation? The day-to-day experience, the ambience. Milecastle, Hadrian’s Wall We are too used to modern colonialism to appreciate the differences of ancient “military” experience, when so embedded in institutions of property, land, citizenship.
Performing Presence
Our project to investigate “presence” in live performance and media draws to a close with a final conference – March 25-30 Exeter University UK – summing up a tremendous five years of work … [Link] Link – Presence – the conference Next comes a book from Routledge – “Archaeologies of Presence” – due out in [...]
Exhibit of the week: The Art of Participation: 1950 to Now – THE WEEK
Exhibit of the week: The Art of Participation: 1950 to Now – THE WEEK My review of the exhibition at SFMOMA, in which appears a work my lab created with artist Lynn Hershman, is here – [Link]
SFMOMA – The Art of Participation 1950 – Now
Life Squared [link], our installation in the online world Second Life, is currently part of the exhibition The Art of Participation 1950 – Now at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Life Squared – web link and gallery link. More links – Linden Lab/Second Life and Wired magazine The exhibition, curated by Rudolf Frieling, is [...]
Metamedia at Stanford
Reception yesterday in our lab at Stanford. Metamedia – because there can be no archaeology without media(tion) – the past is turned into something else – that we may attempt understanding. As archaeologists we displace the remains of the past, translate, write, draw, photograph … A lab – devoted to collaborative experiment. [Link]