war music

Poetry turned performance — National Theatre Wales are currently presenting a performed version of Christopher’s Logue’s extraordinary account of Homer’s Iliad, designed and directed by Mike Pearson and Mike Brookes. [Link] Pasts and presents mingled in place event, past poetic shards rearticulated as real-time event – theatre/archaeology. It’s another theatrical triumph – after Aeschylus Persians…

George Shaws paintings

Mike (Pearson) and I are planning a new edition of our book “Theatre/Archaeology” – now 15 years old. A key topic – the documentation, description, inscription of place/event – recognizing that places are always in motion, made what they are by virtue of our engagement, happening, perception, actions performed. Mike mentioned the work of George…

forty years on – restaging – return – nostos

I have just received the wonderful photo book of Mike Pearson’s new work – The Lesson of Anatomy 1974/2014. On 5 and 6 July 1974, the newly founded Cardiff Laboratory for Theatrical Research (later Cardiff Laboratory Theatre) presented The Lesson of Anatomy: The Life, Obsessions and Fantasies of Antonin Artaud in the Sherman Arena Theater,…

chorography – media materialities

Gallery – [water pigment paper] Working on my text accompaniment to the guide to Paul Noble’s art work, on display currently at Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, has had me reflecting again on just how we might describe an encounter, in this case with a world of the imagination, a curiously enigmatic cosmopolis. (As an archaeologist…

art/theatre/archaeology

The review of my work with Mike Pearson – theatre/archaeology, and more, is out this week in the collection Art and Archaeology: Collaborations, Conversations, Criticisms edited by Ian Russell and Andy Cochrane for Springer – [Link] It all began twenty and more years ago, when Mike came to my department at University Wales Lampeter and…

Autosuggestion – rough cuts

Mike and I have edited the script of last week’s presentation of Autosuggestion – our new work of Theatre/Archaeology. Autosuggestion – the script There’s still some fact checking to do – mainly on the details of car history (and any suggestions will be very welcome – use the comment form at the end of the…