fictive realism – Ray Harryhausen’s model making

There’s an exhibition of the stop-motion animation of Ray Harryhausen running at Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art – [Link]. I vividly remember first seeing his magical movies in the 60s and 70s. The infamous fighting skeletons in Jason and the Argonauts (1963); Pegasus the winged horse in Clash of the Titans (1981). Paul Noble…

Cardiff 1919 – theatre/archaeology

A team from National Theatre Wales, featuring Kyle Legall and Mike Pearson, have just published a powerful work of theatre/archaeology* in their series Storm, about the race riots in Cardiff Wales in 1919. It takes the form of a graphic novel with animated video and voice over. A timely intervention. https://www.cardiff1919.wales – [Link] *theatre/archaeology –…

chorography – media materialities

Gallery – [water pigment paper] Working on my text accompaniment to the guide to Paul Noble’s art work, on display currently at Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, has had me reflecting again on just how we might describe an encounter, in this case with a world of the imagination, a curiously enigmatic cosmopolis. (As an archaeologist…

presence and authenticity – routes to civility

A perceptive item in the Guardian yesterday, from Simon Jenkins: Welcome to the post-digital world, an exhilarating return to civility – via Facebook and Lady Gaga. The point – our contemporary world is a mixed reality – witness the growing importance (again) of “live events”, even as we are more connected digitally: A week in California…