Posted at Jan 23/2012 01:00PM:
MS: I am overhauling the site - please forgive the mess
Michael Shanks - archaeologist at Stanford
mshanks.com - blog - all things archaeological | archaeographer - photography
Edlingham, Northumberland UK
My archaeology is a bridging field. For me, archaeologists do not discover the past; they work on what remains. Archaeology is about our relationships with what is left of the past.
My archaeology began, and continues, in the Roman borders of the north of England and Scotland, exploring Hadrian's Wall, the great medieval city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, then north through the heartland of Celtic Christianity and the landscapes of Walter Scott. I have also specialized in studying the first Greek cities in the Mediterranean (ten years and more looking through the lens of ceramics and urban design), as well as early farming societies and their monuments in Wessex and Sweden - new models and stories of early agriculture, the first cities and empires, long term social and cultural trends, and how making things is at the heart of the human condition.
We are all archaeologists now ...
More of this manifesto in the archaeological imagination - [link]
Archaeology - design research
Pragmatogony - the geneaology of things - where things come from
These are two topics that fascinate me. Because making and using things makes us who we are. This fascination lies behind my research into ancient Greek perfume jars, as well as archaeologies of the contemporary past - beer cans, and cars. Practice-based research - my contribution to our d.school (The Hasso Plattner Institute of Design) and the The Revs Program at Stanford brings archaeological perspectives to bear on innovative industrial design, and on creativity in general, where the best of design studios is a kind of museum - a home of the creative Muses. My own lab or studio at Stanford is called Metamedia.
Understanding creativity and innovation
I have also always adored the company of artists - my wife Helen works in ceramics (see some of her fabulous work here - [link]). I have had the privilege of working with some wonderful talents - notably Brith Gof, Lynn Hershman and the members of the Presence Project). I think that the Arts and Humanities are a fascinating research laboratory, helping us think freshly about how we have got to be where we are - and what we might do about it.
Above all, perhaps, I am currently enjoying a renewed childhood with my children Molly and Ben, who forever remind me to wonder at the most mundane of things, and to connect our fascination with the past with the legacies we leave behind for the future.
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A sample of my work
see also http://mshanks.com
The Archaeological Imagination - Left Coast Press, March 2012
Heritage - a design paradigm - and other topics - a series of seminars and lectures, Göteborg February 2012
Archaeologies of Presence - Routledge, April 2012 - one of the publications of the Presence Project
Innovation and the Humanities - Dublin 2011
The Revs Program at Stanford - launched April 2011
Human-centered Design - Dublin 2010 - three talks on the role of the Humanities in design, strategic planning, and cultural policy. Humanities Institute of Ireland - November 2010
Echoes of the past - antiquarians, chorography and topography - a new piece with Chris Witmore for the journal Performance Research - Summer 2010
FARO at Tongeren - the future of cultural heritage management - a commentary, of sorts, on The European Convention of Faro: Framework Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society (Council of Europe, 2005) - Tongeren (Flanders, Belgium) - February 2010
The Hill of Tara: an undecidable - intervention at an international symposium held at University College Dublin - October 2009
Archaeology - risk society - with Chris Witmore - a statement about archaeology's place in contemporary society - full title "Memory practices and the archaeological imagination in risk society: design and long term community" - connects with the work of Stanford Strategy Studio
A theory of assemblage - TAG (Theoretical Archaeology Group) 2009 Stanford - the (in)famous archaeology conference series has arrived in the US!
Designing digital media - perspectives from the Humanities and Arts - a talk for a colloquium at Stanford in association with the INVENTIO initiative - April 2009
Presence - the conference - Exeter University UK March 2009 - the Presence Project came to this culmination after five years work. I introduced Lynn Hershman and delivered a keynote. A book from Routledge Archaeologies of Presence is on the way.
Scott and Gell - Walter Scott and William Gell: from Marmion to the Morea - some lessons in topography and topology for contemporary reconstructions of antiquity. A talk at Brown University - March 2009
Long term perspectives on innovation - Emerce Rotterdam - an interview with Erwin Boogert of Emerce magazine (Netherlands) - December 2008
Life Squared SFMOMA - our work with Lynn Hershman Leeson reached San Francisco Museum of Modern Art - November 2008 - February 2009
International Advisory Board, Rotterdam - I have joined this prestigious group to offer perspectives on cultural heritage as an essential component of economic development in the largest port in the world - [link] - November 2008 - May 2011
Next Web Salon, Amsterdam - a small group of Dutch (mainly) information technophiles. I talked about storytelling and the web - September 2008 [link]
Video as social agent - introduction to three new works commissioned by the Tate Gallery - September 2008
The (digital) future of the university museum - keynote at the UMAC Conference, Manchester UK - September 2008
Digital Humanities - a vision - some thoughts from summer 2008
Designing digital tool kits for the Arts and Humanities - an intervention at "Bamboo" Planning Project, Berkeley April 29 2008 (a project between Berkeley and Chicago to work with the Mellon Foundation in building infrastructures and tool kits for research in the Arts and Humanities)
Figure-ground relationships and the archaeological imagination - Keynote at "Art is History" - graduate symposium, San José State University - April 12 2008
"There's no place like "domus" - California Classical Association Spring Conference, April 5 2008. As Vice-President of CCA I hosted this fine panel discussion in the Archaeology Center. David Smith (ex-Stanford Classics), President, did a great job of organizing the speakers - [link]
Archive and memory in virtual worlds - for the Media X Conference, Stanford - discussion with Pat Hanrahan, Vladlen Koltun, Byron Reeves and Jeremy Bailenson - March 2008
Entitled Opinions - with Robert Harrison - a radio talk on KZSU about the origins of agriculture (and much more) - February 5 2008
Artereality - a manifesto for arts education in the US - written with Jeffrey Schnapp (Stanford Humanities Lab) for a new collection - Art School: Propositions for the 21st Century, edited by Steven Madoff, (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2009)
TAG 2007 York UK - reworking Shanks and Tilley - a conference session looking back at my work in the 80s with Chris Tilley - December 2007. To be a book edited by James Dixon (Bristol).
Collaboration and research networks in the Humanities - Getty Research Institute - November 2007
The future of the museum - discussion with Dominic Willsdon and Rudolf Frieling of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art - November 2007
Life Squared - an animated archive - a talk in Manchester - Manchester Whitworth Gallery - November 2007 - A symposium on Lynn Hershman - 
Life-squared-Manchester.mov
Beyond Powerpoint - Google tech talk on presentation software - November 2007
With Lynn Hershman in Seed Magazine - October 2007 - discussing our particular conjuncture of art and science
Symbolic and structural archaeology - the coggies 25 years on - a review of changes in archaeology since the paradigm-shifting book "Symbolic and structural archaeology" (Cambridge 1982) - with Chris Tilley I contributed a paper on the archaeology of the body in prehistoric farming society - Cambridge Archaeological Journal 2007
Life Squared Montreal - September - December 2007 - a manifestation of the mixed reality archive of Lynn's work at the Dante Hotel, San Francisco 1972
KZSU - radio interview on the archaeological imagination - May 2007
Politics of Presence - a colloquium at Stanford, part of the research workshop Critical studies in new media - May 2007
Archive 3.0 - the colloquium - a Stanford Humanities Lab brain trust - Stanford Humanities Center - May 2007
Chillingham, Northumberland UK
writing projects - personal workspace
