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…
nostos – the return
Archaeological shores: reflections on a metaphysics of cartography
Field notes. The pragmatics of an archaeological sensibility — what might one do in an archaeological visit to the beach? For as long as I can remember maps have made me anxious. Where does one draw the line of a coast, a road, a river? In archaeological excavation one is regularly required to document, record,…
Update: December 2022 – slow archaeology
“Our brains aren’t designed for multitasking”, my dear friend Cliff Nass, mathematician, cognitive scientist and psychologist, warned me a good long while ago – and he’d written a book about it! “It will slow you down and cloud your reasoning.” OK — I’m still working on the same big three projects as back then. But…
Mike Pearson – theatre/archaeology
Mike Pearson died last week. He was a performance artist, theatre director, theorist and philosopher, scholar and teacher. And, as composer John Hardy said, Mike collaborated and connected – visual design, architectural stagecraft, poets, playwrights, composers, experimental jazz musicians, dancers, disability & gender specialists, comics, community art conveners, museum curators, traditional Japanese theatre performers, Patagonian farmers,…
Studio update – Spring 2022
This academic year I am on sabbatical leave finishing three long-running projects and planning to focus more on applications of the archaeological imagination to matters of common and pressing contemporary concern, especially through design foresight and futures literacy. This is why I have put to one side my critical commentary on all things archaeological and…
sampling and re-presentation
Sampled pigments from mine tailings. Amelia Colliery, Shankhouse, Cramlington, Northumberland UK. Closed 1938. One of many coal mines in south east Northumberland. The pit heap was notorious for its internal burning – hence the red and orange oxides. Non-representation. Post-phenomenology. Part of project Borderlands – [Link]