connoisseurship of the car
I am back from an extraordinary symposium at Miles Collier’s Revs Institute in Florida, exploring the world of collectable cars at this end of an era. The engine note, the feedback through steering wheel from rubber tyre grip, the scent of warm motor oil, the conversation by the gas station on the road trip, will be history [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
cars – past, present, future – the case of automotive heritage
On Wednesday evenings this quarter I have been hosting a series of conversations with colleagues at Stanford and beyond about the world of cars – past, present and future. Sponsorship has come from our Revs Program and Stanford Continuing Studies [Link] With a very sharp and expert audience we covered a tremendous amount of ground, [...]
cars old and new at VAIL
The Revs Program series of conversations about the past, present, and future of the automobile [Link] and [Link] ended yesterday with a session at VAIL, the Volkswagen Automotive Innovation Laboratory. David Russell brought his 2CV, Neil Pering his 1966 Lancia and Dick Tuttle his Peel Trident (the futuristic bubble car made on the Isle of [...]
Alan Bennett’s satire – the National Trust and heritage
I am hearing a lot about Alan Bennett’s new play “People”, currently running at the National Theatre in London [Link] The setting is where he grew up – south Yorkshire UK, in a run down country house facing an uncertain future. What are it’s upper crust owners going to do to make ends meet? Sell [...]
automotive archaeology and the physiognomy of a car
Fred Simeone’s new book about the conservation and preservation of cars is out today, launched at Bonhams’s “Preserving the Automobile” auction at the Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum, Philadelphia, – [Link]. Fred is prompting a reevaluation of car collecting with his support for sensitive preservation rather than restoration. There have been two preservation classes of cars [...]
Heritage Open Days
More confirmation of the spread of that contemporary and popular sensibility attuned to the resonances of pasts-in-the-present. English Heritage, the government agency, has put up nearly half a million dollars for a weekend of 4500 heritage open houses. This is the biggest heritage event in the UK this year. Peter Saunders in his re-creation of [...]
the culture of archaeology
Highway 128 Boonville California Since I moved to the United States a dozen years ago, I have spent a good deal of time in Northern California in a small back woods town called Boonville in the Anderson Valley on Route 128 as it makes its way to the Mendocino Coast. Always an agricultural community, logging, [...]
Pebble Beach – matters of heritage
I was immersed last week in the world of automotive heritage – learning more about those who care, sometimes obsessively, about the automobile as an artifact. Yesterday was the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance – [Link] [Link] [Link] More photographs of the week’s events at archaeographer.com – [Link]
Olympics opening – (in)tangible heritage
London – the opening of the 30th Olympiad A bucolic pastoral green and pleasant land succumbing to dark satanic mills, in William Blake’s vision, homage also to Tolkein’s pitting of Hobbiton against Isengard’s tower; Shakespeare’s Tempest declaimed by Brunel on the slopes of a druidic oak-toppped Glastonbury Tor; dreams of Peter Pan and Mary Poppins; [...]
automotive connoisseurship
Palo Alto Concours d’Elegance – . Taking a tour with Jon Summers. What are the values and principles that govern the collection of cars? Just what are the values applied to these extraordinary artifacts? Age, elegance, finish, rarity, historical significance, market value … These are questions of automotive connoisseurship.
Louwman Museum – a cathedral of automobilia
Visited the Louwman collection of automobilia today with Riemer Knoop – [Link] One of the oldest and most spectacular in the world. Housed in a remarkable new building (architect – Michael Graves) in Den Haag, Netherlands.
Old Amsterdam – Café Scheltema
The way things used to be? Talking heritage with Rob van der Laase [Link] – the way the past is cleaned up, filtered, extraneous matter removed – that we might more appreciate a clear narrative – that this did indeed happen here. Here – a remarkable untouched remnant of a meeting place, famously associated with [...]
heritage/design – theatre/archaeology
I am in Amsterdam delivering the Reinwardt Memorial Lecture at the Reinwardt Academy for Cultural Heritage in the Amsterdam School of the Arts [Link] [Link] This annual event commemorates the birthday of Caspar Georg Carl Reinwardt (3 June 1773 – 6 March 1854), after whom the Reinwardt Academy is named. The Academy is the foremost [...]
against cultural property – heritage as design – and wellbeing
My argument [Link] that heritage is a matter of creativity and design – work done with, typically, remains of the past (tangible and intangible) – involves an argument that heritage should not be conceived as cultural property. I made this point, though rather weakly, in my entry on cultural property for The Oxford Companion to [...]
critical heritage as design
To continue the argument from my previous posts – [Link] [Link] – that heritage, the (legacy) of the past in the present, is best conceived as a process of working on the past in the present – as a process of design. I have just returned from a trip to Göteborg, that most wonderfully open [...]
prehistory and performance – an experiment in site specifics
In Göteborg this week I have been returning to the work of arts company Brith Gof – site specific performance. And theatre/archaeology – the rearticulation of fragments of the past as real time event. The context is my argument that the heritage industry is just that – work performed on what is left of the [...]
The Archaeological Imagination
My book, The Archaeological Imagination, long in gestation, will soon be out from Mitch Allen’s Left Coast Press – [Link] This week in Götegorg, I have been sharing some of its stories. Set in the borders between England and Scotland, I explore the roots of so many of our contemporary attitudes towards the past. The [...]
Heritage as design (continued)
Felipe Criado Boado (CSIC, the Spanish National Research Council and INCIPIT, the Institute of Heritage Sciences in Santiago de Compostela) is with us in the Archaeology Center for a couple of weeks. This evening he lectured about the way his new institute is approaching heritage. Heritage – the footprint of memory and oblivion – a [...]
heritage design – aspiration and redemption
Tuesday July 19, Westminster, London (This is the report on our previously noted visit – [Link]) Bianca Carpeneti and Michael Shanks visiting Alan Campbell MP at the House of Commons Our current work on the archaeological project at Binchester UK includes a major focus on cultural resource management (CRM), as it gets called in the [...]
racing experiences (2) – Laguna Seca
A fascinating week for the Revs Program at Laguna Seca Racetrack. Coordinated effort to document the driving experience – historic cars – and the community who cherish automotive heritage. Raising the profile of automotive studies, taking seriously this vital iconic part of the contemporary past. As Mark Gessler – HVA (Historic Vehicle Association) and FIVA [...]
Revs at Monterey Motorsports Reunion
We are gearing up for taking the Revs Program [Link] [Link] along to the week-long run up to the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance [Link]. During the pre-Reunion weekend and the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion, we will have a booth in the paddock area to enable people to learn more about us. Miles Collier will have [...]