Trafalgar Day at Trafalgar Squarestanding on the steps of the National Galleryand walking to the Tate Modern Urban experience is one of layering narrative allegory spectacle intensity assemblage
ruins and remains
The perfume of garbage
Beginning work with Bill Rathje and David Platt on a paper for a special issue on archaeology and modernism for the journal Modernism/Modernity This is how we begin with the World Trade Center There is something profoundly archaeological about the experience of 9/11 and its aftermath. Less than a month after the attack a meeting…
Photographing the archaeological
I notice a few recent books by photographers who are into abandonment and decay – me monitoring sensitivity to the archaeological, as usual. I particularly like ReadyMades: American Roadside Artifacts by Jeff Brouws. — here are some drive-in movie screens Pictures of old pickup trucks, abandoned gas stations (he has a lovely series in black…
end of empire?
Wallsend UK Roman fort at the end of Hadrian’s Wall. I dug here in 1975; I was 15 and I loved fieldwork. I remember the town the most. The site is right by Swann Hunter Shipbuilders, one of the big firms on the Tyne. My dad worked here – late 60s. Most of the old…
Heritage and urban myth
Gateshead UK – Baltic Center for Contemporary Art Dinner last night with Peter and Sue MacDonald; Helen of course too. The restaurant is at the top of the old flour mill on the quayside, though it looks like a grain silo. It’s now an arts center, 46 million quids worth. Lots of other development here…