Towards an Archaeology of the Contemporary Past

Archaeology, defined as the study of material culture, extends from the first preserved human artefacts up to the present day, and in recent years the ‘Archaeology of the Present’ has become a particular focus of research. On one hand are the conservationists seeking to preserve significant materials and structures of recent decades in the face of redevelopment and abandonment. On the other are those inspired by social theory who see in the contemporary world the opportunity to explore aspects of material culture in new and revealing ways, and perhaps above all the central question of the extent to which material culture — be it in the form of objects or buildings — actively defines the human experience. Victor Buchli's An Archaeology of Socialism takes as its subject a twentieth-century building — the Narkofim Communal House in Moscow — and seeks to understand it in terms of domestic life and changing policies of the Soviet state during the 70 or so years since its construction. Thus Buchli's study not only concerns the meaning of material culture in a modern context, but focuses specifically on the household — or more accurately on a series of households within a single Russian apartment block. A particular interest attaches to the way in which the building was planned to encourage communal living, during a pre-Stalinist phase when the State sought to intervene directly in domestic life through architectural design and the manipulation of material culture. Subsequent political changes brought a revision of modes of living within the Narkofim apartment block, as the residents adjusted and responded to changing political and social pressures and demands. The significance of Buchli's study goes far beyond the confines of Soviet-era Moscow or indeed the archaeology of the modern world. He questions the role and potential danger of social and archaeological theory of the totalizing kind: a natural response perhaps to the experience of the Narkofim Communal House as an exercise in Soviet social engineering. He poses fascinating questions about the relation between individual households and the state ideology, and he emphasizes the role of material culture studies in reaching an understanding of these processes. In the brief essay that opens this Review Feature, Victor Buchli outlines the principal aims and conclusions of An Archaeology of Socialism. The diversity of issues that the book generates is revealed in the series of reviews which follows, touching in particular upon the ways in which routines of daily life — archaeologically visible, perhaps, through the analysis of domestic space — relate to structures of authority in society as a whole

Extra-terrestrial Methods: Towards an ethnography of the ISS

The anthropological study of extraterrestrial settings might seem novel and exotic. However, this chapter proposes that the methodological tool kit available to social scientists for the empirical study of multi-sited, distributed, and space-age research contexts has a well-established genealogy, informed and developed by recent innovations in the ethnographic study of social media and their attendant communities. The International Space Station (ISS) is the longest-lasting extant extraterrestrial society in Low Earth Orbit. As it is a place of dwelling, not just scientific discovery, any anthropological study of the ISS must focus on the quotidian and material dimensions of the ISS and its bodily and material techniques, re-examining traditional empirical assumptions within the innovative conditions of new polymedia environments in which the ISS is situated. A central element in the question of an extraterrestrial methodology is the means by which various forms of terrestrial and extraterrestrial attunement converge to produce novel realm of human habitation and its expanded and expanding ‘field’ of co-presence

The social condenser: again, again and again—the case for the Narkomfin Communal House, Moscow

This article reexamines the Narkomfin Social Condenser not as a discrete architectural form but as one of a series of many iterations that must be taken into consideration as an emerging whole over time and in multiple registers. The apparent failure of a given iteration at any one point of time detracts from the productive power of such ‘failures’ over time whose reiterative force not only attests to the power of the Social Condenser as a principle but also ensures its ability to enact its benevolent social promise over many years and in various forms

‘How can I be post-Soviet if I was never Soviet?’ Rethinking categories of time and social change – a perspective from Kulob, southern Tajikistan

Based on anthropological fieldwork conducted in the Kulob region of southern Tajikistan, this paper examines the extent to which the existing periodization ‘Soviet/post-Soviet’ is still valid to frame scholarly works concerning Central Asia. It does so through an analysis of ‘alternative temporalities’ conveyed by Kulob residents to the author. These alternative temporalities are fashioned in especially clear ways in a relationship to the physical transformations occurring to two types of housing, namely flats in building blocks and detached houses. Without arguing that the categories ‘Soviet’ and ‘post-Soviet’ have become futile, the author advocates that the uncritically use of Soviet/post-Soviet has the unwanted effect of shaping the Central Asian region as a temporalized and specialized ‘other’

Quantitative In Vivo Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Using Synthetic Signal Injection

Accurate conversion of magnetic resonance spectra to quantitative units of concentration generally requires compensation for differences in coil loading conditions, the gains of the various receiver amplifiers, and rescaling that occurs during post-processing manipulations. This can be efficiently achieved by injecting a precalibrated, artificial reference signal, or pseudo-signal into the data. We have previously demonstrated, using in vitro measurements, that robust pseudo-signal injection can be accomplished using a second coil, called the injector coil, properly designed and oriented so that it couples inductively with the receive coil used to acquire the data. In this work, we acquired nonlocalized phosphorous magnetic resonance spectroscopy measurements from resting human tibialis anterior muscles and used pseudo-signal injection to calculate the Pi, PCr, and ATP concentrations. We compared these results to parallel estimates of concentrations obtained using the more established phantom replacement method. Our results demonstrate that pseudo-signal injection using inductive coupling provides a robust calibration factor that is immune to coil loading conditions and suitable for use in human measurements. Having benefits in terms of ease of use and quantitative accuracy, this method is feasible for clinical use. The protocol we describe could be readily translated for use in patients with mitochondrial disease, where sensitive assessment of metabolite content could improve diagnosis and treatment

Creative Reverse Engineering – from remote sensuality to haptic metrology

Our ongoing experimentation in close-range Photogrammetry has overcome common challenges to generate accurate, high-resolution 3D models using a single DSLR camera and innovative approaches and computer-coded devices. More recent investigations across disciplines sought to bridge the gap between traditional creative skills and modes of visualisation, and what can be made possible through digital means. Working as artists and designers alongside museums and historians, we have developed new photogrammetry equipment and approaches to help overcome the complex fluid geometry, shadowy occlusions and delicate lamina edges of challenging monochromatic garments. The resulting 3D models have allowed the rapid extraction of faithful seams and surfaces direct from the processed ‘mesh’ and into CAD modelling environments for the production of new designs, patterns and production tooling. Current collaborations seek to apply these developments to the capture, visualisation and reverse engineering of iconic garments and museum artefacts, alongside the 'remote sensing' of traditional pattern cutters whose eyes, minds and hands are the equivalent of the digital approaches explored in our paper. The second phase sought to unpick some of the familiar structures of object- and asset creation in and for Virtual and Augmented Reality. Experimenting with equipment, methods and processing techniques allowed us to explore the potential of 3D visualisations and readily available tools within Virtual and Augmented Reality for garment design and other forms of object-based creative ideation, sketching and prototyping. In the next stages of our ongoing research we explored a more haptic form of CAD-enabled modelling and metrology, aiming to bring these approaches within the reach of a wider range of creative users: enabling artists, designers and makers to move more seamlessly between digital tools and virtual environments, and actual things in real time and space

Archaeology, Architecture, and the Postcolonial Critique

Peer reviewe

Postcolonial manifestations of African spatiality in Europe : the invisible 'public' spaces of Ghent

The focus of this chapter is on everyday spaces of African migration in the mid-sized city of Ghent. One manifestation of African spatiality is discussed in-depth in relation to its (in)visibility and publicity: an African shop located in an ordinary terraced house. With no less than 12 activities taking place in the building, the shop is rather a “public” place than solely a space of commercial transactions, although this is not signaled in very visible ways. By analyzing the modest stylistic appropriations of the façade and the significant re-arrangements of the buildings’ interior spaces that challenge more conventional usages of spaces in Ghent’s ordinary houses, this chapter puts this African shop to the fore as emblematic of how the process of materialization of transnational lifestyles and connections is always a balancing act between the visibility necessary for functioning as a (semi-)pubic place and the invisibility required to circumvent hegemonic regulatory regimes

(Im)material Culture : Towards an Archaeology of Cybercrime

Cybercrime is ubiquitous. People now inhabit a digital environment comprising permanent risk, exponential threats, and multiple virtual/physical harms, forming a global community of malefactors and the criminally exploited. The purpose of this paper is two-fold. First, through an archaeological lens, to characterize the new materiality of cybercrime (including its artefacts and architecture alongside digital/virtual manifestations). And second, to explore the potential for new perspectives on cybercrime borne out of this archaeological approach. In short: what is the archaeology of cybercrime and can new understandings emerge from an archaeological perspective? In undertaking this research we also challenge the long-held presumption that non-physical traces cannot be studied archaeologically. It is our contention that they can

Nogo-A Expression in the Brain of Mice with Cerebral Malaria

Cerebral malaria (CM) is associated with a high rate of transient or persistent neurological sequelae. Nogo-A, a protein that is highly expressed in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) of the mammalian central nervous system (CNS), is involved in neuronal regeneration and synaptic plasticity in the injured CNS. The current study investigates the role of Nogo-A in the course of experimental CM. C57BL/6J mice were infected with Plasmodium berghei ANKA blood stages. Brain homogenates of mice with different clinical severity levels of CM, infected animals without CM and control animals were analyzed for Nogo-A up-regulation by Western blotting and immunohistochemistry. Brain regions with Nogo-A upregulation were evaluated by transmission electron microscopy. Densitometric analysis of Western blots yielded a statistically significant upregulation of Nogo-A in mice showing moderate to severe CM. The number of neurons and oligodendrocytes positive for Nogo-A did not differ significantly between the studied groups. However, mice with severe CM showed a significantly higher number of cells with intense Nogo-A staining in the brain stem. In this region ultrastructural alterations of the ER were regularly observed. Nogo-A is upregulated during the early course of experimental CM. In the brain stem of severely affected animals increased Nogo-A expression and ultrastructural changes of the ER were observed. These data indicate a role of Nogo-A in neuronal stress response during experimental CM