Dere Street | Chew Green
In the North East of England for the Binchester excavations – Vinovium.org. Dere Street, the Roman road that passes through Binchester, here runs north across what is now the English-Scottish border. There was a medieval village – Kemblepath – up here in the wilds of Upper Coquetdale. On the site of Chew Green, the Roman [...]
Ghost signs: BBC Viewfinder
The BBC is covering Tom Bland’s photography in the archaeological imagination – Ghost signs. “I was seeing layers of typography, paint, colour – and combined with the texture of the crumbling and flaking materials, many of them were appealing to me as contemporary pieces of design in the vein of work by Ray Gun magazine.” [...]
Walltown Crags
Checking out Hadrian’s Wall for our summer tour. Chorography – checking out the car parks!
elements of a theory of ruin
A wonderful talk this evening from Alain Schnapp in our Archaeology Center. It was about “ruin” as an intellectual artifact. Through a kaleidoscope of quotes and vignettes about ruin from antiquity to modernity, Alain reflected upon broad human experiences at the heart of our sense of history, memory practices, collection, temporality. Goethe among the ruins [...]
Boonville, Anderson Valley, California
Back in Boonville, after the field season in the UK. Standish vinyard – tasting room in an old apple barn. Testimony to the dying orchards of the valley, the fast-growing shift to wine production. Standish – the old connection with the Pilgrim Fathers. One of the Pinot Noirs is named “Mayflower”. Gallery – Link
end of industry
At the Durham Miners’ Gala 2009 The annual celebration of a great industry and labor movement, once a living force, now a memory, nostalgically inspiring at best, after Thatcher’s neo-liberal ideology and political spite closed all the coal mines and devastated the pit villages. Gallery – Link
SFMOMA – The Art of Participation 1950 – Now
Life Squared [link], our installation in the online world Second Life, is currently part of the exhibition The Art of Participation 1950 – Now at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Life Squared – web link and gallery link. More links – Linden Lab/Second Life and Wired magazine The exhibition, curated by Rudolf Frieling, is [...]
potsherd
Potsherd found in the ruins of the Stanford family mansion destroyed in the 1906 earthquake.
end of industry
End of industry – remains of fishing on this tidal island in the borders of England/Scotland.
post mortem
Photographs taken after the death of a child were popular in the mid nineteenth century. Daguerreotype, 1850s, eastern USA.
Found photos
Fascinating website of photographs found undeveloped in old cameras – [Link - westfordcomp.com] Camera c 1947. (Thanks again to Sam (Schillace) for this link.)
“Heritage USA”
Abram (Stern) has put me on to the recent Boing Boing link to photos of the rotting Jesusland built by Jim Bakker. Illicitohio.com spcializes in urban exploration in and around Ohio, photographing abandoned buildings and structures. They have a gallery devoted to “Heritage USA” and the PTL Club – 2000 acres of a Christian evangelist [...]
Chillingham – UK borders
The tomb of Sir Ralph Grey. In the south transept of St John’s church, Chillingham, Northumberland.
The photographs of Edward Burtynsky and the animated museum
The touring exhibition of the wonderful photographs of Edward Burtynsky reaches the Cantor Arts Center today and runs till September 18. Nickel tailings #30 – Sudbury, Ontario Like Gursky, [Link] Burtynsky works in large format – the pictures are up to 5 feet across. His subjects are envrionmental impacts. Great holes in the ground like [...]
Gary Hill’s theatre/archaeology at the Colosseum
Rome Risonanze Oscure Dark Resonances We are at the Colosseum, the Flavian Amphitheatre – me, Nick (Kaye) and Gabriella (Giannachi). It is 10pm. Across the street beneath the temple of Venus we have been looking at flickering images of what look to me like archaeological sediments projected into the foundation arches, behind the protective iron [...]
Joseph Beuys and the archaeological
Tate Modern London. I am still reading today’s Arts section of the Guardian – this time Adrian Searle’s preview of the Tate Modern’s new exhibition of Joseph Beuys [Link] Beuys wasn’t being mischievous or disingenuous when he said there was nothing to understand (in his work). He may have been wrong to believe everyone could [...]
Iain Sinclair and the urban imaginary
A fine piece of writing from Iain Sinclair, a bit overblown maybe, in The Guardian today about the Thames in the urban imaginary that is London – Paint me a river. Liquid prompts guide our steps towards the scintillae of the supremely visible Thames. Here begins the work of poets and painters, their argument and [...]
Derrida’s archaeology
9 October I never got to finish my comment on Derrida who died last week. [BBC Link] The obituaries were largely stifled by misunderstanding, outrage, horror and incredulity – have a look at the Guradian’s lamentable list – [Link] Mark Taylor was better in the NYT – [Link] Jacques Derrida Flying back to the US [...]
media archaeology meets theatre/archaeology
Media archaeology – working on the traces of a medium. Theatre/archaeology – the (re)articulation of traces of the past as real-time event. 10×10 / 100 Words and Pictures that Define the Time / by Jonathan J. Harris 10×10 (’ten by ten’) is an interactive exploration of the words and pictures that define the time. The [...]
Nimrod in Antarctica
Mike (Pearson) has sent a couple of pictures of the Shackleton hut – Nimrod. He was talking about the archaeological questions of its conservation the other week. More importantly, about how his research into the expedition’s Polar Theater revealed much of the nature of such scientific expeditions. [Link]
more fantasy archaeology
– the never-ending search for the Holy Grail … The BBC is reporting what looks like another publicity scam Fascination with the Holy Grail has lasted for centuries, and now the Bletchley Park code-breakers have joined the hunt. But what is it that’s made the grail the definition of something humans are always searching for [...]
