from collector to curator

This is one of a series of comments on the 8th biennial symposium “Connoisseurship and the Collectible Car” held at the Revs Institute for Automotive Research in Naples, Florida in March 2015. [Link] Cars are changing – robots are on their way. And car collecting is changing. [Link] While training as an architect Nick became…

car collection – connoisseurship and archaeology

This is one of a series of comments on the 8th biennial symposium “Connoisseurship and the Collectible Car” held at the Revs Institute for Automotive Research in Naples, Florida in March 2015. [Link] The symposia at the Revs Institute bring together people passionate about collecting cars, passionate about thinking deeply around questions of conservation and…

Pearson|Shanks – theatre|archaeology

A decade after our book Theatre/Archaeology (Routledge – [Link]), Mike Pearson and I have started a new series of collaborative works. Here is a prospectus: Pearson|Shanks – theatre|archaeology – return and prospect Twenty years ago Mike Pearson, performance artist, and Michael Shanks, archaeologist, opened a dialogue and collaboration through the theatre company Brith Gof, of…

rephotography – Road&Track

Photography frames and fixes This can be enabling – seeing things through a detail, microcosmic part for whole – synechdoche – the oligopticon, where macro ladidary detail ironically offers more than the wide angle or panorama (contrast the panopticon). The world in a grain of sand. And disabling – frames restrict and compress, and fixity can…

when the everyday becomes history and heritage

A couple of months ago Road&Track were about to throw out their old office collection of back issues, photographs, notes, books, promotional literature sent them by car companies, and all manner of paperwork reaching back to the late 1940s when the magazine, one of the most famous and respected in the automotive world, was founded….

on the road to Auto Archive 3.0

The Revs Program at Stanford is developing a dynamic archive of automotive history using the cutting edge skills and technology of Stanford Libraries. It will offer online access to an exceptional library of resources plus powerful facilities for anyone in the automotive past to collect, annotate, upload and share their interests and knowledge – a…