Michael Shanks: Archaeographer

http://archaeographer.org - a photoblog from Michael Shanks (currently, Spring 2008, under revision)

Archaeographer is my personal version of archaeography - a photoblog devoted to exploring all things archaeological.

Here is how we describe the project

Archaeography and Archaeographer are photoblogs that explore the connections between photography and archaeology.
This is not some quirky juxtaposition - we are convinced that photography is profoundly archaeological, and that archaeography is about a hybrid experience at the heart of contemporary culture. Archaeography and Archaeographer face a challenge of how to work with the chaos of fragmented traces, remains and documents of the past that forms the substance of so much of everyday life today.
Proposition. We are all archaeologists, even if we don't realize it. An archaeological sensibility - working on what is left of the past, heritage, museums, collecting culture, antiques, retro styling, family genealogy, local history, tourists visiting the past - is a vital part of the contemporary zeitgeist.
Proposition. Photography is profoundly archaeological. Photographs are like archaeological traces of the moments they capture. Photowork raises a question faced by all archaeologists - how do we document events? But neither photowork nor archaeology create transparent windows on the past, though many think they do.
Proposition. Media are material matters. The materialities of media and instruments need to be essential concerns of both photography and archaeology - photographers and archaeologists need to deal with the way their tools and instruments affect what it is they are looking at. Cameras are clocks for making images that are traces of the past. The photograph itself, computer screen, negative, paper or transparency, is an integral and material part of engaging with what is pictured. The archaeological trowel, spade and surveying instrument sculpt the past into different documentary forms we can comprehend.

Current posts

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Here are three of my essays relevant to archaeography

Archaeologies of the contemporary past

Archaeology and photography

The perfume of garbage - a piece written with Bill Rathje and David Platt on archaeology and modernity. It appeared in the special issue of Modernism/Modernity on "Archaeologies of the modern".