To End 2012 Merrily with Pigeons

Zoo Architecture

Pop Palimpsests

A palimpsest comes from the ancient Greek palimpsesetos, literally meaning “scraped clean and used again.” Archeologist Paul Basu used the notion to express how the constructed past is a projection of our present mindset: “practical and discursive memories from different periods become intermeshed such that one period is remembered through the lens of another.”

The History Channel's latest ads dabble in similar ideas: different times in same spaces are superposed suggesting we forget but need to remember, as well as marking how the black and white past is a creation of the colourful present.

Basu, P. 2007. ‘Palimpsest Memoryscapes: 

Materializing and Mediating War and Peace 

in Sierra Leone’ in F. De Jong; M. Rowlands 

(eds), Reclaiming Heritage: Alternative Imagina-

tions in West Africa, Walnut Creek, CA: 

Left Coast Press p. 234.

Project: Accumulation

I'm presenting the work and paper Accumulation I collaborated on 

with Drop Legs (Lesley Braun) 

in NYC tomorrow at the Graduate Student Conference on "Critical Information" at the School of Visual Arts (SVA).