the archaeology of now

as national archaeology week and my experiment with the city draws to its close, i’ve been drawn far away from my usual preoccupations with excavating and exploring prehistoric settlements and the civilisations of antiquity, away from the usual presumptions about what archaeology is and what its parameters and applications are, towards a broader interpretation that sees archaeology as part of the research into the contemporary big picture. this 'archaeology of now' interrogates pressing issues of late modernity, recognises its responsibilities as a cultural producer, and involves itself in wider cultural and societal debates.

if history could be said to be the story of names, dates and momentous developments, then archaeology has always seemed to me to be the stories of the ordinary, the everyday, the insignificant things and people behind the great names, dates and developments – it’s not a great leap to apply these same principles to now, to what’s around us, to notice and remark upon them before they disappear without critical comment or engagement.

if the project of the artist has been increasingly to reflect and illuminate the conditions of modernity, its pluralisms, contradictions and contestations, who else but the archaeologist has the depth of vision and the methodological framework to add weight and insight to this endeavour – who else dissects and deconstructions the physical, visual and symbolic evidence of the material world, offering alternative, even subversive readings from the dominant narrative of an increasingly globalised mainstream discourse. this worldview, this reflexive archaeology encourages a renewed interest into the contemporary landscape and built environment and sees that the archaeological imagination can be applied where you least expect it, and with unexpected allies and collaborators.

my original intention at the outset of national archaeology week was to figure out the link between our practices and the underlying shared purposes of our increasingly merging interests and concerns. along the way, i have spent a fair amount of time trying to figure out just where i, a prehistorian by training, with an interest in the philosophy of archaeology and the history of its reflective journey on its own motives, methods and future, might find a productive place to contribute. i shall keep you posted as this journey progresses and takes me into the maelstrom of contemporary debate.

the situationist anniversary weekend hosted from 26 - 29 july at urbis and around the city provides this uncertain archaeologist with an opportunity to apply the ideas and strategies of a seemingly unconnected discourse with modernity to those of the 'archaeology of now'. unqualified as i am, in i go, nervous but hopeful of a new ally in this emerging practice, the project of investigating and looking at now...

peeps

my musings whilst mooching around the museum got me in the mood for mining the city in the same way that the alchemy artists and the museum as institution have embarked upon the reflexive journey of learning to look differently at what is under our noses, what we see day to day, and in its familiarity loses its ability to inspire or tell its story.

where to start on this journey of archaeological imagination?

the city, any city is endlessly fascinating, a mirror to ourselves, our hopes, fears, misgivings and achievements all under one roof; if you like, a museum of modern living, a laboratory, a constant ongoing experiment. i know, i thought, i'll meander through town, taking in my usual haunts and reassuring pitstops until i reach urbis, the temple to the metropolis - perhaps the absolute opposite to the ideal of the museum. maybe there i'll get a handle on the city, change my innate prejudices and be inspired to re-examine the familiar and the strange with a more curious eye.

my friends say i'm obsessed with piccadilly station, perversely attracted to its post commonwealth games tart-up. i protest that this in fact has a deeply intellectual significance, an acknowledgement that all life is a journey, etc, etc - but whatever the truth most days i end up there, people watching and daydreaming at the overhead timetables. today is no different and it doesn’t fail me for serendipitous inspiration...

the good people who administer the tram depot keep a number of large advertising hoardings on the platform, showcasing occasional artworks, photographic exhibitions and interesting snippets of upcoming cultural events. they are usually worth a look. right now is a series of images entitled peeps, by artist and architect dan dubowitz, the artist in residence for gorton monastery, and curator of a longer term project called 'wastelands'. i have long been an admirer and was lucky enough to hear him discuss his work and ideas at one of urbis's recent ‘talkies’, so the coincidence is complete...peeps is where i’ll start!

peeps is the outcome of 3 years of 'immurations', the culmination of his residency in new islington, the ambitious redevelopment across most of Ancoats, the much vaunted birthplace of manchester and the industrial revolution. as the developers uncovered and exposed intriguing artefacts from this world heritage site, dubowitz wondered whether retaining some of these relics might be a tangible manifestation of its past plus a link to its future, a symbol of the rift in time and space that the constant renewal and upheaval of the city represents. in many ways peeps is the antithesis of the ‘public’ artwork, a living intervention rather than a memorial, a solution more intimate and personal than the traditional monument, one which recognizes the complex nature of the metropolis, a palimpsest where past and future collide and irrupt into each other at every turn.

literally immured - walled - into the fabric of its new skin, there is a danger that the project might appear to be an embalming, a consignment to the ashes, but peeps intends to situate history and heritage as a living, integral component of the present and future, where they can continue to play out their part. peeps will not be officially opened or revealed, rather be happened upon by the curious or sought out by the interested: affectionate, knowing glimpses of ancoats’ enduring character and personality.

i shall be seeking them out as soon as possible and definitely listening in on september 3 when bbc manchester will be broadcasting live from ancoats.

in the meantime, these recent projects of dubowitz should whet the appetite....

the reflexive museum

and so i wandered over to the manchester museum...

even here in the proverbial 'dreaming spires' its clear that the city’s relentless pursuit of change, reinvention and renewal isn't to be avoided. the whole of the university corridor is under reconstruction and huge billboards loudly boast at every turn that this current inconvenience is to be patiently borne whilst a £650 million campus is built for us. rather dwarfed by the emerging new skyline, the museum sits snugly in the eye of it all, the personification of victorian ideals and values, intimidating, fusty or irrelevant according to your personal peccadilloes...

except that upon examination, the museum has in fact undergone something of a transformation of its own, both physically and symbolically, pre-empting the mood of the larger institution to which it belongs and quietly getting on with emerging as a rather intriguing addition to the cultural scene of the city.

"museums –well they’re a bit staid aren’t they? somewhere that dusty old leather patched boffins live, doing boring and arcane research on musty old fossils..

..only school kids and retired spinsters go to museums, don’t they?"

actually nothing could be further from the truth. the victoria & albert holds regular late night happenings, the british museum has started opening the doors to its great hall till 11pm for drinks and events, and i’ve even heard a rumour about speed dating nights…

museums are fast becoming the place of choice for the chattering classes, a fashionable place to hang out and be seen.

how on earth did that happen? i remember when i was a girl museums were quite the thing, and crowds flocked to see the curiosities of the world laid out all under one roof, but over the last century or so they somehow lost their mojo and everyone forgot all about them and started to go to the art gallery instead. beguiling with their neutral white space, these new temples to knowledge, truth and beauty purported to be arenas free from restrictive narratives, democratic places dedicated to simply focusing on the art object, pure art for arts sake, for anyone’s and everyone's aesthetic appreciation…

a powerful art myth but one that still has its adherents. artists predictably were the first to recognise the didactic nature of the art gallery, and from Duchamp onwards have been tackling the complex dynamic effected by the white cube’s invisible strait jacket; a sanitised stifling space dictating what we see and how we perceive it, determining our overall relationship to art by entirely separating it from our everyday experience. the history of 20th century art could be said to be the history of artists’ constant campaigns to disrupt and subvert the power of the institution, to create a conversational dialogue with the audience, giving rise to locational or site specific work responding directly to the social / cultural milieu, the geographical and physical space it finds itself in. contemporary practitioners continue to be determined to find representational spaces that operate outside or apart from the somewhat commodified territory of the gallery, a space which has been much criticised for dictating and managing our total viewing experience, leaving no room to think for ourselves, or respond to the work independently.

there are a plethora of examples and experiments of this kind of discourse about the nature of art and its purpose. once you start looking there’s art everywhere - the big screen; wall or graffiti art; commissioned public artworks; or even diy artist run spaces like Apartment, an inhabited flat on the edge of the city that shows contemporary work by young artists deliberately and almost disconcertedly intimate in its vernacular, familiar domestic set-up.

whilst these various socially aware, off the plinth, locational generation of conceptual art practices have been emerging and even become commonplace, another drama has been quietly unfolding – a phenomena of artists rediscovering the museum, an institution so overloaded with enlightenment victorian values and didactic messages that even museum staff came to find rather burdensome. if the art gallery could be accused of playing a trick of neutrality with the audience, the natural history or archaeology museum, whilst created with a set of conventions and strict rules of its own, seems a veritable playground to artists with the luxury of relative freedom from museology’s own discourse. as the debate within the museum world raged from the late 1980’s onwards about its very nature and history, artists were rediscovering the 'cabinet of curiosity' aspect of the early museum, intriguing places of awe and wonder, stuffed to the gills with creative inspiration.

out of the ashes of this debate is a quiet revolution.

at the manchester museum is the alchemy project, an initiative which facilitiates an ongoing series of artistic interventions into the fabric of the museum, at turns subtle, audience friendly or provocative. recent highlights include a series of evening talks by the current crop of alchemy artists, a welcome opportunity to understand more about the nature of the institution, the dissecting of its collections by new rather unconventional approaches and research, ongoing collaborations between artists and museum specialists, plus a chance to delve into the bowels of the museum and handle little seen artefacts. everyone's favourite, the ancient egyptian gallery, has a fascinating addition to its display, creating a timely debate on our contemporary attitudes to death and burial and the cultural treatment of the dead, by including the work of contemporary artists and craftspeople who create vessels and funerary containers for use today.

pop in on a spare afternoon and discover a material, metaphysical, inspirational world. nothing is what it seems in this victorian cathedral as it embarks on a grand adventure of reflecting on and encouraging debate on its place in the 21st century.

national archaeology week 14 - 22 july 2007

this week is national archaeology week, a topic close to my heart. perhaps its a tribute to the time team effect that the past has never seemed so sexy - a week hardly goes by without a documentary examining ancient bodies, exploring our ancesters through the magic of genetics and DNA, or following a celebrity historian on a journey across various ancient wonders of the world, not to mention the huge success of sex and blood soaked swords and sandals soap-dramas running on the BBC. as we are evidently in the grip of heritage fever, this week of events and activities offers a timely opportunity to get involved in the practices and processes of day to day archaeology.

at one time i would have been found waist high in a prehistoric ditch, trowel or pick axe in hand, covered in mud or peat. its the stereotypical view of archaeology and what archaeologists do, much promoted by the time team format, and if you can get to a dig this week, then there's honestly no more satisfying way to spend your time. or there is usually a museum, stately home or heritage centre to visit which will supply more than enough hands-on activities to keep anyone happy. but what if you crave actual field work or the visceral thrill of discovering something forgotten and neglected for the first time? how can the average urbanite be an archaeologist?

in real life an archaeologist possibly spends more time at their desk than in the field and excavation is only one part of the archaeological process. the lack of a dig site is no bar to the archaeological imagination. being an archaeologist is in reality a state of mind, a way of looking and of seeing the world, and in this there are obvious parallels to the artistic process or the photographer's practice. with this in mind my aim is to take part in national archaeology week by examining and exploring the familiar surroundings of the city with an archaeological eye, noticing and recording the impact and collisions of the past and the present in the ever changing urban environment. i hope to happen upon the archaeology of now and the recent past and notice how we utilise, adapt and relate to our material surroundings.

to get me in the mood i'm straight off to the splendid manchester museum, a treasure trove of objects and artefacts that at first viewing might seem rather stuffy and traditional, but which on closer inspection offers masses of inspiration for the budding archaeologist of the imagination...i'll report back later.

however you decide to spend it, enjoy archaeology week and try reading britarch online to get you started. hopefully we will bump into one another at a site, at the museum or lurking about some of the seedier stretches of town, fellow archaeologists of the ordinary...

diary of a bluestocking

welcome, gentle reader, to this experiment and fledgling online journal or diary; a diary of a bluestocking, the musings of an anachronism caught quite unexpectedly in the 21st century.

but first etiquette demands some attempt at introduction ~

bluestocking; a somewhat pejorative term for literary or intellectual ladies, deriving from the Blue Stockings Society, an informal women's movement in England in the mid-18th century. a more formal association existed in paris, perhaps the inspiration for the english movement...

euphemia pubert niblock; my fabulous alter ego, an archetypal bluestocking, epitomises the spirit of the edwardian spinster. her daring exploits and fearless nature were the talk of the empire: in her day as celebrated as contemporaries gertrude bell and freya stark, her notorious rivalry with agatha christie was ultimately her downfall. rumours of her implication in the case of the writer's famous missing 11 days in 1926 persist to this day...

pray tarry awhile in these pages, revisit occasionally, add a comment or two, perhaps make her acquaintance on facebook. she will need all the friends she can muster to make sense of this peculiar new millennium...