memento mori

In theory: the death of literature

An intelligent feature in The Guardian by Andrew Gallix on Tuesday 10 January. The topic – “we’ve heard it all before” – [Link]. “We come too late to say anything which has not been said already,” lamented La Bruyère at the end of the 17th century. The fact that he came too late even to [...]

Jan 13, 2012 | Categories: "what becomes of what was", (past) presences, actuality, contemporary past, design matters, memento mori, presence, ruins and remains | Leave A Comment »

Olivier – Le sombre abîme du temps

Laurent Olivier’s wonderful book Le sombre abîme du temps has just appeared in translation (as The dark abyss of time: memory and archaeology) – [Link] Laurent offers profound elaboration of the fundamental insight that the past is all around us, before us, in material traces, that presence is filled with the past, that the future [...]

Nov 21, 2011 | Categories: "what becomes of what was", (past) presences, actuality, archaeological sensibility, archaeologists, materialities, memento mori, memory practices, ruins and remains, the shape of history, the spectral, the uncanny, time | 1 Comment »