Design, RES and RESPUBLICA

In Tokyo for EPIC – Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference. 6th edition. [Link] Some summary points from my keynote. How could I not respond to Kenya Hara’s wonderful opening keynote and his emphasis on the dialectic of making and its deep connection with human being? [Link] The range of research techniques and methods that I…

Mike Pearson | The Persians

Classics and the contemporary past Mike Pearson and his new production of Aeschylus Persians (National Theatre of Wales) gets a superb review in the Guardian today [Link] This is site-specific theatre with a vengeance. High up in the Brecon Beacons, in a mock-up village used by the military as a training-base, National Theatre Wales is…

elements of a theory of ruin

A wonderful talk this evening from Alain Schnapp in our Archaeology Center. It was about “ruin” as an intellectual artifact. Through a kaleidoscope of quotes and vignettes about ruin from antiquity to modernity, Alain reflected upon broad human experiences at the heart of our sense of history, memory practices, collection, temporality. Goethe among the ruins…

haunted media

Some years ago Sam (Schillace) put me onto a Russian photographer, Sergey Larenkov, who combines old and new photographs of Leningrad/St Petersburg, then – WWII, and now. They have haunted me ever since. It’s not difficult to find the photos on the web; it only took me a few moments to find them again –…

design, exobiology and archaeology

Tim Brown has commented on the design of the exobiology in James Cameron’s much-touted movie “Avatar” – [Link] I took Molly and Ben to see it again this weekend. There is certainly something captivating about the creatures and environment of planet Pandora. Tim talks about the plausibility of the design work that makes it easier…