The archaeological sensibility - a radical example from Argos
Stated briefly, the archaeological sensibility is that capricious sensation (both embodied and intellectual) experienced by humans today which suggests that things encountered index or embody complex temporal possibilities. The archaeology of the contemporary past suggests that by seeing the past as a complex of things experienced today, the past is liberated from boundaries and distinctions built into its rendering.
Simply stated, things from different times, or of different peoples or just things which wouldn't normally be thought of as existing together are approached as co-temporal happenings. A mesolithic flint or a medieval wooden comb or a piece of rubbish left from last week's binmen are all of the same temporality because we experience them together, presently, now, as part of living of the contemporary. And by experiencing pasts in this liberated contemporary sense, many new possibilities could be made evident - such as in Chris Witmore's photographic studies of squatter's dwellings in Argos, Greece.
Are Chris' photos any less 'archaeological' than an excavation of a bronze age settlement?
Labels: archaeology, theory
posted by Ian Alden Russell @ Monday, October 06, 2008
1 Comments:
Hi Ian,
There are other photographs to follow in this series. The Napfplion street residence where this work took place is perplexing for numerous reasons. Indeed, it is one of the last remaining gated estates which were so characteristic of Argos in the 18th and 19th centuries. Now in ruin and under rubbish, in terms of relations and memory, it is as singular as the Bronze Age site upon the Aspis of Argos.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home