Yesterday Bill (Rathje) commented on space junk. [Link] I asked him to say more about garbage and archaeology in space. He reminded me of something that was in a recent article of ours (Michael Shanks, William Rathje and David Platt, “The perfume of garbage: modernity and the archaeological” – last issue of the journal Modernism/Modernity,…
ruins and remains
between prehistory and the stars – deadly litter
Bill Rathje on space junk I have been trawling eBay for the last month or so looking for old camera equipment for my Metamedia Lab – part of our explorations of media metarialities – getting away from the notion that new media are somehow immaterial data. Came across an item that I had forgotten –…
media archaeology – Laurence Olivier recycled
Laurence Olivier has been resurrected for a film role. A new movie – Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow – uses old footage of Olivier, with dubbed voice, as the villainous leader of killer robots threatening civilization. The style, judging from the trailer, is wonderfully retro and noir – looks very reminiscent of Fritz…
media archaeology – hearing the past again
BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | Getting back into the groove News of some more fascinating media archaeology in Berkeley – recovering sound from wax cylinders too delicate to touch. Queen Victoria, Abraham Lincoln, Florence Nightingale and other characters from history may soon be able to speak again, as scientists perfect techniques to recover…
the look of the past
A moving event this afternoon. A celebration of the life of a family friend, Barbara Levin, who died last week. It was at her home in Portola Valley, where her son Dan Levin, Naomi Andrews and their daughter Maya now live. She loved food, travel, living life to the full. What has stuck with me…
Julian Thomas and the dangers of scholasticism
Julian Thomas (Manchester University) and Mike Pearson (Wales, Aberystwyth) were the opponents in the defence of Jonna (Ulin) and Fiona’s (Campbell) dissertation in Gothenburg (see my blog entry for June 11). Something has been bugging me since then about Julian’s criticisms of their work. Jonna and Fiona make a basic proposition that archaeology is performance….