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Spurensicherung Art

Spurensicherung art is a form of archaeology that anthropologists can benefit from. Spurensicherung consists of “discovering material evidence in the present, which is then used to reconstruct events of the past, [and it] links detective novels, criminology, and Freud’s psychoanalysis with archaeology. Traces are taken as clues for the events that caused them.” In the same way that a coroner can establish how someone died by examining the body, studying the room the murder occurred in, and piecing together clues such as evidence of poison or a bloody murder weapon, so archaeologists and anthropologists can take advantage of relics from the past—or even the present—that provide clues as to how a culture functions. This type of evidence in the forensics sphere is known as circumstantial, it does not provide any direct proof of what has occurred, but it provides clues from which inferences can be made A word with a dual meaning securing circumstantial evidence and police forensics department Spurensicherung in the context of art refers to the practice of collecting and studying “material leftovers and recording techniques”  Pieces of circumstantial evidence are referred too as “mute witnesses” because they tell the story that the murder victim cannot.

Art as Evidence

As an art form, it is missing the scientific component. There is a number of Spurensicherung artists Christian Boltanski, Paul-Armand Gette, Nikolaus Lang, Patrick and Anne Poirier, and Charles Simonds however none of them make any pretense of science, nor do they claim to be archaeologists “…no hypotheses or interpretations about any events in the past are actually being offered.” On the other hand, however, Spurensicherung art cannot be dismissed out of hand, either, because it lends itself to other interpretations that can enhance the meaning of scientific work. For example, a coroner might use meticulously collected scientific evidence such as fingerprints, clothing fibers, and hair samples to determine the identity of a murderer. Spurensicherung is generally also meticulously collected, and although it is not scientifically examined or analyzed, it can still amplify the meaning of what is found. As Nigel Poor explains of her collection of Spurensicherung art collected from sidewalks and other venues outside on her daily walks, “The objects were clues to hidden worlds. It is as if each object had fallen from a story, and, in its finding, was plucked out of the obscurity of some invisible narrative. In this sense, the object became ‘evidence’ which deserved closer inspection”

A volume of Spurensicherung art taken from a particular area of the city can characterize the city’s inhabitants, their habits, and the types of activities that go on there every day. The novel The Crying of Lot 49, the author writes about one of the characters, “Though she knew even less about transistor radios than about Southern California, there were to both outward patterns a hieroglyphic sense of concealed meaning, of an intent to communicate.” This suggests that found objects can be likened to a picture language similar to hieroglyphics and that while their meaning may be hidden, there is inherent within them “an intent to communicate." Giorgyi Kepes thought of art as a “feedback system…which expresses the higher goals and symbols of a given society.”

Collectors

Individual collectors of Spurensicherung art tend to specialize in certain types of objects or detritus. For example, the work of amateur excavators Scott R. Jordan and Dan Magee, who refer to themselves not as archaeologists but as “historical diggers.” Their interest is in using vintage maps to find out where 19th-century dwellings existed in New York City and digging there to find dollhouse miniatures, along with porcelain dolls, glass marbles, and other toys. “Dan and Scott’s findings reflect the history of childhood in America in an unusual way,” given that many of the toys they find were “lost down the privies and wells of America,” where no one expected them to found again.

Collecting Spurensicherung art may not be a scientific endeavor, but it offers a wealth of information that can be useful in helping legitimate scientists reconstruct the way a people lived, worked, and played especially when taken in conjunction with the truly scientific evidence already found. These collections of found and lost objects reflect the nature of the society they come from in a number of ways—where they are found, how many like objects are found, what signs there are indicating how they were used, and what symbolic value can be ascribed to them. In the context of anthropology and archaeology, Spurensicherung art can be included as a source of further detail on what is already scientifically known, and especially, a means of determining how the way objects were used in the past provides clues to what they meant to the people of the era under study.

References

Bibliography

Holtorf, Cornelius. From Stonehenge to Las Vegas: Archaeology as Popular Culture. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2005.

Houck, Max M. Mute Witnesses: Trace Evidence Analysis. New York: Academic Press, 2001.

Mendes, Eliza de Sola. “Lost & found: Excavating miniature history.” Dollhouse Miniatures, (Sep 2000), 28-30. New York Artifact Art. 

Moravanszky, Akos. “Infiltrations and Interferences: Scientific Methods in Art and Architecture.” 