Artchaeology: a sensorial approach to the materiality of the past (original) (raw)
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Art, craft, and the ontology of archaeological things
Tim Ingold's 'science of correspondence' describes a kind of epistemological intimacy in the practices of art, science, and anthropology. Archaeology would benefit from cultivating correspondence as a way to understand its research process. Ingold's model, however, appears to elide art and craft. Though both are necessary, I argue they should be kept separate for analytical purposes. Correspondence as pre-conceptual practice provides a way to understand that the form of archaeological objects is the outcome of processes of growth rather than design. Artworks as non-conceptual outcomes of practice provide insight into the nature of archaeological things beyond what can be understood under the general terms of correspondence. Artworks and archaeological things share the ontological problem of how to make something new out of materials. Artists work on materials to generate sensations never before experienced. Archaeologists work on a more circumscribed body of material to produce a past not thought of or experienced before. Unlike artworks, archaeological things carry both sensation and the residue of concepts with them. An archaeological sensibility can help archaeologists resurrect not the original concepts themselves but the conceptual potential immanent to the specific arrangements of materials and the forms they, however temporarily, take on.
The Concept of Art as Archaeologically Applicable
In this article I review arguments in favour of the need and possibility of importing a revitalized concept of art in archaeological reasoning. By comprehending the concept of art as a function, rather than as a property inherent within particular kinds of objects or events, I offer a way of understanding art as the mode in which a phenomenon operates when its ontological multiplicity, its variety of equally real modes of being, becomes exposed. Seen in this vein, art emerges as an entity both created and experienced when several potential versions of a thing or event are laid bare. I emphasize that an element's capacity to communicate such factual intersectionality requires effort in order to endure; and argue that it is the formats for such 'practices of maintenance' that constitute art-worlds situated in culture. I also assert that these strategies, like all formalized engagements with material culture, generate traces, and accordingly can be grasped by analyses of an archaeological record. To illustrate this idea, I discuss the red ochre rock paintings from Neolithic northern Sweden made between approximately 6000 and 4000 BP by hunter-gatherer communities that were also producing petroglyphs.
Introduction: Artistic Practices and Archaeological Research
Artistic practices and archaeological research, 2019
Printed ISBN 9781789691405. Epublication ISBN 9781789691412. Artistic Practices and Archaeological Research aims to expand the field of archaeological research with an anthropological understanding of practices which include artistic methods. The project has come about through a collaborative venture between Dragoş Gheorghiu (archaeologist and professional visual artist) and Theodor Barth (anthropologist). This anthology contains articles from professional archaeologists, artists and designers. The contributions cover a scale ranging from theoretical reflections on pre-existing archaeological finds/documentation, to reflective field-practices where acts of ‘making’ are used to interface with the site. These acts feature a manufacturing range from ceramics, painting, drawing, type-setting and augmented reality (AR). The scope of the anthology – as a book or edited whole – has accordingly been to determine a comparative approach resulting in an identifiable set of common concerns. Accordingly, the book proceeds from a comparative approach to research ontologies, extending the experimental ventures of the contributors, to the hatching of artistic propositions that demonstrably overlap with academic research traditions, of epistemic claims in the making. This comparative approach relies on the notion of transposition: that is an idea of the makeshift relocation of methodological issues – research ontologies at the brink of epistemic claims – and accumulates depth from one article to the next as the reader makes her way through the volume. However, instead of proposing a set method, the book offers a lighter touch in highlighting the role of operators between research and writing, rather entailing a duplication of practice, in moving from artistic ideas to epistemic claims. This, in the lingo of artistic research, is known as exposition. Emphasising the construct of the ‘learning theatre’ the volume provides a support structure for the contributions to book-project, in the tradition of viewing from natural history. The contributions are hands-on and concrete, while building an agenda for a broader contemporary archaeological discussion. http://archaeopress.com/ArchaeopressShop/Public/displayProductDetail.asp?id={BAAF7F21-9F73-4A38-AACC-AD0DD3A5B31C}
María Pía Guermandi (ed.), Archaeology & ME. Pensare l´Archeologie nell´Europe Contemporanea. Looking at Archaeology in Contemporary Europe. Bologna: Institute per I Beni Artistici, Culturali e Naturali, 2016. Pág. 146-49.
Short essay on the enhancement of the positive relations between Art and Archeology by fostering the performative dimensions of the archaeological pracrtice and its capacity as reverse engineering. Text in bilingual edition in English and Italian. // Breve ensayo sobre la potenciación de las relaciones positivas entre arte y arqueología basándose en la recuperación de las dimensiones performativas del trabajo arqueológico y su capacidad como ingeniería inversa. Texto en edición bilingüe en inglés e italiano //
Sensing the Past: An Exploration of Art and Archaeology
Design/Arts/Culture
This portfolio deals with the work I have been undertaking for the past 20 years. Investigating sense of place at Belas Knap Neolithic long barrow, Cotswolds, England. I have taken an holistic approach in the creation of art that aims to bridge the sensory experience of archaeology, memory and culture. Over the last twenty years I have been responding through my art to place and memory, mapping, interpreting and connecting to the seasonal changes at Belas Knap, a laterally chambered Neolithic long barrow located in the Cotswold Hills, Gloucestershire, South West England (NGR: SP0209 2554).
Journal of Skyscape Archaeology, 2023
All archaeologists use creative methods, whether consciously or unconsciously. In the context of archaeological theory and method, the edited volume Art in the Archaeological Imagination explores postprocessual approaches to the study of the past through art and imagination. The editor, Dragoş Gheorghiu, is a professor at the Bucharest National University of Arts in Romania and the author of many publications in the field of historical anthropology and archaeology. His research topics span from sensorial to experiential approaches, intangible heritage to augmented reality, rites of passage to prehistoric technologies. European prehistory is the historical context mostly explored in his publica-tions, and that is also the case with this volume. He has been the co-author of several EAA (European Association of Archaeologists) conference sessions in recent years, with themes centred on soundscapes and rhythm in prehistory, anthropomorphism, identity, interdisci-plinarity and educational practices between past and present. Archaeological imagination is also a key topic among Gheorghiu’s interests. This subject has been explored already by Michael Shanks, who observes that “there are many creative choices to be made in the way that we may take up the past” (Shanks 2012, 149). Adding art to the idea of archaeological imagination, for Gheorghiu the field can be referred as “art-chaeology”, to emphasise the “cognitive analogies between the archaeological research and the artistic practices” (p. 95). The volume contains much technical language, but the book is nevertheless acces-sible to non-specialists, with the style changing across the different contributions. In some chapters, such as Jacqui Wood’s contribution on “the prehistoric artisan’s mindset”, findings are presented qualitatively in the form of an artist’s diary or journal, and take a subjective literary form. Other chapters, however, tend towards quantitative analysis and essay-style arguments on topics such as cognition, aesthetics, psychology and demog-raphy. Several black-and-white images aid comprehension.
In search of the lost senses in archaeology: Experimental creations and sensory apprehensions
The Countless Aspects of Beauty, 2018
The present study focuses on the experience of contemporary creators and collaborating archaeologists, aiming to reinstate aspects of the ancient world through the reconstruction of garments, jewels, vases, perfumes, etc. The aim of the research was to delineate the relationship between the different senses and the creative process and their contribution to a multisensory approach to the ancient world that enriches contemporary aesthetic perception and the understanding of elusive aspects of antiquity.