Avatars, Monsters, and Machines: A Cyborg Archaeology

New publication!

Avatars, Monsters, and Machines: A Cyborg Archaeology came out today in the European Journal of Archaeology. The article comes from our session at EAA 2018, Human, Posthuman, Transhuman Digital Archaeologies, and is part of a dedicated volume. I’ll write another blog post when the volume is completely published, but contributions from William Caraher, Ruth Tringham, and Katherine Cook are up on FirstView.

The article examines posthuman theory to understand how we use digital tools to interpret archaeology. I use the concepts of avatars, monsters, and machines to argue that digital archaeology should go beyond traditional representation to challenge and change interpretation and to transgress boundaries between “real” and “digital.” I made a horribly confusing diagram to try to explain the interstitial space where present and past people commingle. I coin a neologism that will probably relegate me to some hall of shame. The whole thing makes me want to hide a little, but it brings a lot of theory into conversation with digital archaeology, so might be useful for the bibliography at least.

Title: Avatars, Monsters, and Machines: A Cyborg Archaeology

Abstract:

As digital practice in archaeology becomes pervasive and increasingly invisible, I argue that there is a deep creative potential in practising a cyborg archaeology. A cyborg archaeology draws from feminist posthumanism to transgress bounded constructions of past people as well as our current selves. By using embodied technologies to disturb archaeological interpretations, we can push the use of digital media in archaeology beyond traditional, skeuomorphic reproductions of previous methods to highlight ruptures in thought and practice. I develop this argument through investigating the avatars, machines, and monsters in current digital archaeological research. These concepts are productively liminal: avatars, machines, and monsters blur boundaries between humans and non-humans, the past and the present, and suggest productive approaches to future research.

If you don’t have access, here are the pre-proofs.

Author: colleenmorgan

Dr. Colleen Morgan (ORCID 0000-0001-6907-5535) is the Lecturer in Digital Archaeology and Heritage in the Department of Archaeology at the University of York. She conducts research on digital media and archaeology, with a special focus on embodiment, avatars, genetics and bioarchaeology. She is interested in building archaeological narratives with emerging technology, including photography, video, mobile and locative devices. Through archaeological making she explores past lifeways and our current understanding of heritage, especially regarding issues of authority, authenticity, and identity. View all posts by colleenmorgan