Two articles this weekend about the Parthenon marbles. The Guardian reports a video making a case for the return of the marbles sent to 1000 members of Parliament in the UK. The New York Times yesterday ran an article about the guilt instilled by a new museum on the slopes of the Acropolis in Athens,…
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Vermeer’s archaeological interiors
Gorgeous. The movie. “Girl with a pearl earring”. At the heart – the simulacrum – the exact copy of an original that never existed. The PR and website for the movie are all about a delicate understated relationship, implicit in a finely crafted painting, a love story (the publicity stills show the main characters staring…
types of object
Barry Katz and I started a new course this quarter for Stanford Continuing Studies. Design – ten things: ten conversations sixteen kinds of object – just some thoughts made – comforting – evocative – signifying alienated – original – useful – everyday iconic – itself – mine – subversive mute – found (accidentally or deliberately)…
Archaeologists with attitude
Colin Renfrew in Stanford. Here to join me and Bill Rathje in a conversation about archaeology, for our book Archaeologists with Attitude. Gave a fascinating talk this evening – “The Sapient Paradox: cognitive archaeology from institutional facts to material realities”. He sketched out his interest in what he called material engagements – how people get…
obsessions with origins
BBC Science/Nature has picked up on the occurrence of red ochre dating back 90k years at Qafzeh cave, Israel (after a recent article in Current Anthropology). Associated with burials, the pigment is taken to indicate symbolic and ritual thought (red=dead). The typical argument then goes that this is a momentous leap in human evolution. And…
Ben Cullen
Ben Cullen died eight years ago today in Cardigan, Wales. He was only 31. He had the same birthday as my daughter Molly; died on my parents wedding day. He was a great friend. Ben’s big idea was that biological organisms and things are not always as radically different as we usually hold. Viral phenomena…
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