Studio Michael Shanks Stanford University Click images to enlarge Questions and propositions Four interrelated research questions: Current projects — ongoing Archaeological history — building scenarios. Greece and Rome: a new model of antiquity. With Gary Devore. A project concerned with how one might conceive of antiquity as a kind of archaeological prehistory, retold through speculative…
posts – matters of design
Archaeography: An Introduction
A conversation with photographer Graeme Williams [Link] last November prompted me to reorganize and review my own photowork. Here’s one result. Archaeography — where the performance of photowork meets an archaeological sensibility.Exploring the shared practices of archaeology and photography — working with remains, attending to traces, and composing with absence. Since the 1970s I have…
Cloud study with monument
North Sea – Storebaelt Bridge. After John Constable’s cloud studies 1821. Series. Archaeographic notes An archaeologist might come upon an unexpected discovery. A photographer judges when to release a shutter on a moment before the camera. Kairos is a key in archaeological and photographic engagement and mediation — kairos is actuality, the moment when things…
Figuration
Three ancient figurines from Freud’s desk. Charcoal drawing by Robert Longo [Link] after a photograph taken as Freud left Vienna in 1938.
Robert Longo’s archaeological sensibility
An exhibition of works by Robert Longo at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art [Link]. Raft at Sea 2016-17 Longo traces photographs in charcoal. Large scale charcoal drawings. Of photographs. Blow-ups — upscaled photographs — traced projections. Iceberg for C.D.F (Caspar David Friedrich), 2015-16; The Western Wall, 2011 (Jerusalem) Stand back and you see the BIG…
Speculative author
Hans Christian Andersen at Tivoli Amusement Park, Copenhagen [Link]. August 10 – here’s his desk at the H.C. Andersen Hus in Odense [Link]. The museum/center/garden/experience is remarkable tribute to the extraordinary range of his work. I had not appreciated his sophistication – fabulation, science fiction, psychology, collage, papercuts, letter writing …