Itinerarium Septentrionale

I have started the publication of my work in the English/Scottish borders with a three volume visual chorography. The first is now available. Itinerarium Septentrionale – A Northern Journey. Volume One – Coast Here is how I describe the project: Itinerarium Septentrionale: a northern journey through the English/Scottish borders. An itinerary: a schedule, a list,…

Ghosts in the Mirror

I was quite pleased with the special Blurb edition of the review of theatre/archaeology that Mike Pearson and I just published (good quality imagery, reasonable typography and layout) [Link] [Link] So I ran up a new portfolio of my rephotographed daguerreotypes – “Ghosts in the Mirror”. Ghosts in the Mirror by Michael Shanks   Here…

Thessaloniki – physiognomy

Mike Pearson and I have started a new collaboration around theatre/archaeology – the rearticulation of fragments of the past as real time event – [Link] to a prospectus. As part of this revival I am reviewing some of my photography projects from the last three decades, explaining and adding commentary. Many are at archaeographer.com. I…

rephotography – Road&Track

Photography frames and fixes This can be enabling – seeing things through a detail, microcosmic part for whole – synechdoche – the oligopticon, where macro ladidary detail ironically offers more than the wide angle or panorama (contrast the panopticon). The world in a grain of sand. And disabling – frames restrict and compress, and fixity can…

the archaeological uncanny

Gabriel Moshenska has sent me his recent and very neat article about the archaeological uncanny in the ghost stories of MR James. Gabriel is quite right, I think, to highlight the connection between Freud’s unheimlich, ghosts, and the haunting persistence, sometimes malevolent, of the past – MR James made much of the curses that can…