A bug's life (part two) - Monuments and artifacts

Too many monuments, too many artifacts.

Often, even today, archaeology is still considered as a study of objects, artifacts and ancient monuments. I prefer to consider these as "cogs" of a wonderful and powerful machine that produces interpretation and abstraction. If we pay too much attention to objects they turn into idols, easy prey for  false cultural identities. They divert attention from the links (the famous "wire" of the necklace) which are much more difficult to recognize, reconstruct and describe.

Equally difficult, and much more fascinating, is to overcome the concept of reconstruction as monumental reconstruction (real or virtual it be). The collapse of a monument can be a fascinating story to tell; even more than its construction, as long as you understand the best way to narrate it.

to be continued ...

Votantonio

Che dire, non siamo il migliore blog sulle Digital Humanities.

Grazie comunque a tutti per l'intensa partecipazione al voto e per i messaggi di stima. Continuate a seguire P&F e a partecipare alle discussioni.

Tutti gli uomini del presidente

L'ultimo post 'italiano' di P&F risale all'inizio della campagna elettorale. Non è un caso. In queste settimane siamo stati il più possibile attenti ai movimenti della politica intorno ai temi della cultura e abbiamo seguito con interesse le iniziative e i commenti che in rete cercavano -con evidente difficoltà- di rinvenire almeno le tracce dei temi culturali nei programmi delle formazioni politiche.

A bug's life (part one) - Wide open data

1 - Data (and eyes) wide open ... If tomorrow archaeology must be public, and I mean social and sustainable, it must acquire today the tools to support openess and cooperation. Archaeologists must begin to speak a new language, with a new alphabet. The alphabet of this language must be open data, but the language, like every language, must also have a grammar, and a syntax.  Otherwise, the data could be as open and available as possible, but people will interact with it just like users. Or customers of an archaeology reduced to a huge app store. to be continued ... *The original titles of this post and of the following 4 was ‘crickets and ants’ and referred to a short tale from Aesop. It was originally written after the first Italian congress of public archaeology, held in Florence on 29 and 30 October, 2012. These days were intense both for the number of speakers and posters and for the intense livetweet (hashtag: # pubarch). The English version is thus a little different from original, as some time has passed since the congress. During the congress I did not make any notes (the track of these days, in Italian, is carefully reported in the blog ‘generazione di archeologi’). I wrote down some reflections about the congress, as there were the first signs of a major mental shift in italian archaeology which one hopes will change things.  Public Archaeology is a long tradition in Northern Europe and America. Maybe we have the chance to do it in Italy.

When the goin' gets tough ...

... the tough get goin'!

Passato E Futuro è stato nominato nella categoria blog, articoli e brevi pubblicazioni per i Digital Humanities Awards: Recognizing Excellence in Digital Humanities.

P&F è l'unico blog italiano fra i nominati; e questo da un lato ci fa piacere perché vuol dire che siamo una novità, dall'altro ci piace un po' meno, perché significa che da noi c'è ancora tanta strada da fare ...

Adesso è il vostro turno! 

Se in questo anno appena trascorso vi è piaciuta la voce libera e indipendente di P&F, allora potete esprimere il vostro consenso votandolo come:

Miglior blog sulle Digital Humanities per il 2012

P&F has been nominated for "Digital Humanities Awards: Recognizing Excellence in Digital Humanities" in the category blogs, articles and short publications.

We are the only Italian blog among the nominees! We're proud about this, but there is still much to be done ...

Now it's your turn!

If you like the free and independent voice of P&F, vote it!

Best blog on Digital Humanities for 2012

The great illusion (part two)

Another interesting side effect of the dogmatic identification between archaeological reconstruction and monumental rebuilding is the illusion that there is a 3D for archaeology, and 3D itself is a communicative language rather than an absolutely neutral technology.