A conversation with photographer Graeme Williams [Link] last November prompted me to reorganize and review my own photowork. Here’s one result. Archaeography — where the performance of photowork meets an archaeological sensibility.Exploring the shared practices of archaeology and photography — working with remains, attending to traces, and composing with absence. Since the 1970s I have…
media matters
Robert Longo’s archaeological sensibility
An exhibition of works by Robert Longo at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art [Link]. Raft at Sea 2016-17 Longo traces photographs in charcoal. Large scale charcoal drawings. Of photographs. Blow-ups — upscaled photographs — traced projections. Iceberg for C.D.F (Caspar David Friedrich), 2015-16; The Western Wall, 2011 (Jerusalem) Stand back and you see the BIG…
Speculative author
Hans Christian Andersen at Tivoli Amusement Park, Copenhagen [Link]. August 10 – here’s his desk at the H.C. Andersen Hus in Odense [Link]. The museum/center/garden/experience is remarkable tribute to the extraordinary range of his work. I had not appreciated his sophistication – fabulation, science fiction, psychology, collage, papercuts, letter writing …
Map on a wall
Border county of Northumberland [Link] – Three Landscapes Project, Studio Michael Shanks Stanford University 2000
ghost in the mirror
media archaeology More than twenty years ago I discovered the daguerreotype — one of the earliest of photographic media. Images are formed in a camera on polished light sensitive silver-plated copper—on mirrors. These are not just simply early photographs. They are unique one-off images, and positive-negative—you have to catch the mirrored surface at the right…
In Tilley’s garden – a summer long ago
Reflections on the work of Christopher Yates Tilley 1 This is Part 1 of a reflection upon the works of Chris Tilley, prompted by his too-early death in March 2024. I want to do justice to the range and depth, the significance of his work in anthropology and archaeology. My reflections are based on memories,…