Heritage — making futures

A critical-heritage complement to the Janus Maneuver – [Link] More notes on futures studies. A second component to the same conclusion: that working with the past is a way of making futures. Convergence — the “Janus Maneuver” and heritage futures In a recent post I made the case for “The Janus Maneuver” [Link] — that…

Some archaeological notes on futures studies

The Janus Maneuver Hindsight, foresight, and futures studies Everyone, it seems, is a futurist now. Here are some loosely gathered thoughts on why an archaeology of design may be a missing foundation. These are notes – so expect inaccuracies and mistakes of memory (hopefully minor). After Janus – the divine principle of looking both back…

Newsletter — Stanford Archaeology Center

Prospective reflections on 2025-26 Acting with nature — prehistory My new book Archaeologies of Nature: Activating the Archive, written with Gabriella Giannachi, University of Exeter and Turin, is now complete and in production. Open Access — it will be available as PDF in June 2026. We use an archaeology of artworks to probe human relationships…

Crystalline Memories of Deep Time

Claus Spangsberg at the Rundetaarn, Copenhagen [Link]. With Connie (Svabo) on the last day of the exhibition – Crystalline Memories of Deep Time. Part of our ongoing collaboration around art-science, research-creation [Link], scholartistry [Link], creative-pragmatics [Link] – and mobilized through FNUG, her lab at University of Southern Denmark [Link], and Studio MS at Stanford [Link]….

Sycamore Gap — a rhetoric of remains

Landscape with monument. [Link] [Link] One of the most photographed trees in the UK, standing alongside Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland, east of Steel Rigg by Milecastle 39, in the northern borders of the Roman Empire. October 2020. In the early hours of September 28, 2023, the tree was cut down by Daniel Graham and Adam…