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Art and Archaeology
Archaeology is not simply about the past. It is about understanding who we are today via the creation of a past. The performance of archaeology is an attempt to not only realise these creations, these pasts, but also to control and structure through rationally manifested knowledge and information. To focus only on the scientific aspects of archaeology is, however, to only tell half of the story.

Many of the origins of archaeology lie in art historical traditions. It shares with them a common history in the advancement of strategies for seeing, viewing and visualising the world. The discipline of archaeology was established at the end of the 19th century. As the subject developed, a gap developed between the objectivity and subjectivity of images. The sucess of the discipline relied on the ability of its practitioners to observe and objectively document the world - be it the changing colours of soils, recognising the stylistic and compositional similarities between artefacts and sites, or seeing the form of decayed buildings.

So that objective comparative analysis could be achieved - the drawing and visualisation of objects and sites became a fundamental part of being an archaeologist. Archaeological students were trained in the practice of technical drawing as a means of rendering objective - creating scientific documentations of objects, structures and sites. Throughout the 20th century, as new methods and technologies of visualisation presented themselves (such as photography; LiDAR), they were incorporated as extensions of an objective, visual archaeological record of the past.

After the acceptance of positivism as a central epistemological orientation for the discipline in the mid 20th century, archaeologists pursued and incorporated image-making tools (e.g. laser scanning) to truthfully represent and document the past.

Recent adventures in Art and Archaeology
Responding to an interest in archaeological process within contemporary arts, many archaeologists and museums have begun to engage artists directly through residencies and commissions to work on archaeological sites or respond to the representation of archaeological artefacts.

Simon Callery’s Segsbury Project (1996), the Stonehenge Riverside Project (2003 onwards), Stanford Metamedia’s Presence Project (2005-2009) and the Museum of Scotland’s series of commissions including Eduardo Paolozzi and Andy Goldsworthy, all demonstrate interest to engage in a more substantive and collaborative fashion with contemporary artists.

Notable publications include: Substance, Memory, Display (Renfrew et al 2004) by the McDonald Institute for Archaeological research, Colin Renfrew’s Figuring It Out (2005), Michael Shanks’ Experiencing the Past (1991), Shanks and Pearson’s Theatre/Archaeology (2001), Smiles and Moser’s Envisioning the Past (2005), Tim Ingold’s Lines (2007), Cochrane and Russell’s ‘Visualising Archaeology: A Manifesto’ (2007). Helen Wickstead's 'Art+Archaeology' collective, and Stephanie Moser's and Sara Perry's 'Visulization in Archaeology' project.

Links between art and archaeology were revealed in the excavation and reconstruction of the painter Francis Bacon’s studio by archaeologists, curators and conservators at the Dublin City Gallery, the Hugh Lane and archaeologists from Margaret Gowen and Company, Ltd. in 1999 (O’Connor 2008).

Notable expressions that blend archaeology with artistic practice include: IRAC, The research and artwork of Aaron Watson.

See: Douglass Bailey, Ian Russell

Creating and curating a past
As a means of engaging diverse audiences, and disseminating knowledge, archaeological exhibitions are increasingly being developed and utilised. The benefits or such endeavors lie not only in their ability to 'show and tell' - to allow people access to things that are normally archived, or in other parts of the world - but also through events and publications that are associated. These can include: workshops; public lectures; podcasts; vodcasts; gallery talks.

Notable exhibitions include:

Ábhar agus Meon exhibition series from the Sixth World Archaeological Congress in 2008.

The 'unearthed' exhibition at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich in 2010.

'Back to a Land' by Chistine Finn at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park - currently showing.

Forthcoming exhibitions include: Ice Age Art: the Arrival of the Modern Mind (British Museum, 7 February 2013).