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 [...]
Media trips – digital trash and garbology
A new blog devoted to remix and sampling – Media trips Here’s an entry of theirs from October 20 – Check out the newly posted projects at the recently launched online exhibition Digital Recycling at The Stunned Net Art Open 2004, where one person’s trash is another’s treasure trove: What’s more, you can participate by [...]
Mike Pearson and theatre/archaeology
Mike Pearson, performance artist, was in Stanford this week. We wrote the book Theatre/Archaeology together. He talked to our New Media Workshop about recent work of his, and then to the Archaeology Center about his research into what really went on in the expeditions to the Antarctic back in the early 1900s. Both were provocative. [...]
Bulgaria’s golden archaeological hopes
BBC item today Bulgaria’s ancient Thracian heritage has been thrust into the spotlight this year with a number of key archaeological discoveries in the so-called “Valley of the Thracian Kings”. The golden treasures are attracting international attention and there is a push to make the Thracian heritage Bulgaria’s trademark abroad in a bid to boost [...]
the aesthetics of the archive
Abram (Stern) was through at Stanford last night talking to our Mellon Workshop in New Media about net.art – here is the talk in his wiki – [link] There are many interesting matters for an archaeologist – net.art’s focus on broken bits of computer code, frequent nostalgia for older art forms, reuse of media fragments. [...]
a new species of homo?
The discovery of remains of another species of homo that lived alongside modern humans only 18 or even 13 thousand years ago is everywhere today – Guardian Unlimited | Life | “From 18,000 years ago, the one metre-tall human that challenges history of evolution” – a new “hobbit” species found on the Indonesian island of [...]
Remix Radio Show This Sunday in San Francisco! | Creative Commons
Earlier this week I was airing the matter of copyright and intellectual property in connection with academic citation, pulling it all into the issue of democratic cultural creativity. [Link] The The Creative Commons blog announces a radio show this Sunday on the art of remix in a broad perspective – from Roman intertextuality to DJ [...]
Steve McQueen, San Francisco and the 2005 Ford Mustang
More media archaeology Chris (Witmore) put me onto this item in Yahoo! News – Mustang Ads Feature Late Steve McQueen. Ford is to resurrect Steve McQueen in its promotional campaign for the new 2005 Mustang. They did this in the UK a few years back – clever cuts of footage from Bullitt – the very [...]
Guy Sanders on the excavations at Corinth
A few days ago I took Guy Sanders, Director of excavations in Corinth, to task about a recently reported story of enormous sarcophagi at Corinth, complaining that there was so much more to the early city of Corinth than this supposed and amazing technological first [Link] He posted a comment explaining that, as we might [...]
Information is a verb (continued)
The beginnings of a digital dark age? Just came across this perceptive piece about digital archives in SAP INFO “Digital Information Will Never Survive by Accident” – an interview with Neil Beagrie of the British Library. (This came to me via the excellent blog – Stoa.org.) Here is an excerpt: Mr. Beagrie, in modern societies [...]
Why fakes and counterfeit pasts are fascinating
A couple of things last week have got me thinking about an old fascination of mine – fakes and ideas of authenticity. My angle – some notions of authentic reality and truth can be quite mischievous and misleading! And lying can be liberating! It started in the Washington Post – Sure, It’s Real! Real Fake [...]
More from Bill Rathje on deadly litter
Following up his guest blogging on exo-garbology [Link] [Link], Bill has put me on to this piece issued by AP today – “Orbiting space station is like a cluttered attic” CANAVERAL, Fla. – There’s no space in the space station. So a few weeks ago, the two astronauts who live there tossed out some useless [...]
Dennis Oppenheim and the material power of art
I chair the Panel on Outdoor Art at Stanford – we acquire pieces for the sculpture collection and consider offers of donation. Stanford’s collection is one of the best on the west coast. Like Colin Renfrew [Link] I think there is a strong convergence of interest in materialities and time that brings together contemporary art [...]