Archaeology in the 'Information Age'
a course with Christopher Witmore
AE0201 running Spring 2007, F 3:00- 5:20 PM (O Hour).
Course Overview
Archaeology must circulate the material past in two dimensions. The right combination of image (maps, plans, illustrations, photographs) and text has defined professional archaeology since the second half of the 19th century. However, the current explosion of digital media has spurred profound shifts in all domains of archaeological practice and documentation.
Rather than simply providing new skill sets for “using these new digital tools” this course encourages reevaluation of archaeological media, which pertains to information technology across the humanities and sciences. It asks:
- Why would one want to use these various media? What do these various media do?
- How might we effectively enroll new digital technologies?
- What new archaeological practices might the use of such media precipitate?
- Given these questions, how do we go about documenting place, landscape or things?
This course develops an unique, long-term, comparative approach to the digital information age by addressing transformations in archaeological media over the last 200 years. From the genre of the archaeological site report and photography to GIS and VR to social software and video this course develops ways of thinking creatively, critically and comparatively about digital (as well as paper-based and analog) media in archaeology. This approach will help up gain perspective on the tectonic shifts in archaeological practices connected to digital (emergent) media.
This course builds skills which expand our range of expression. It encourages and fosters the experimental use of digital media for students across the humanities and sciences through archaeological case studies. This course will also explore distinctive crossovers between the digital and the material through new documentary practices in archaeology.
This course will be of interest to a range of students (whether Luddites or "techies") from Archaeology, Science and Technology Studies, Visual Anthropology, Media Studies, Classics and Geography.
Key Course Pages
- Archaeology in the 'Information Age' - assessment
- Archaeology in the 'Information Age' - schedule
- group members
- references
- other pixel-based resources
- message board
- projects
