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Peer Comment

Jesse W. Stephen

Department of Anthropology, University of Hawai’i at Manoa, USA. jstephen@hawaii.edu

Cite this as: Stephen, J.W. (2015) Peer Comment, Internet Archaeology, (39). http://dx.doi.org/10.11141/ia.39.10.com1

The contrast between blogging and traditional publishing brings to mind a similar dynamic between digital photographs and their analog antecedents. Media — both words and images — are increasingly accessible, astoundingly proliferate, intrinsically mutable, and sometimes (refreshingly and/or alarmingly) ephemeral. Ifantidis' photo essay alludes to complexities of depiction, scale, marginality, and processes of production and consumption in archaeological photography, yet also presents a counter-intuitive case for physical permanence and clarity of scale with two instances of his past and future works. I offer further commentary on the topics at hand by contributing two images and one video, which further address agency, objects, and architecture in archaeology, respectively.

Figure 1: 'Rotate 180° to view agency' – Agency versus process in archaeological knowledge production, after Tringham's (1991, 125) discussion of faces within the 'trajectory of human transformation''. Composite image from Faces of Archaeology (see Stephen and Morgan 2014) (Image credit: Jesse W. Stephen)

 

Figure 2: Not to scale: Highlighting materials and provenance of three Polynesian fishhooks. Courtesy of Bernice P. Bishop Museum, Anthropology Department (Image credit: Jesse W. Stephen)

 

Figure 3: Archives as marginal, central, or authentic? Time and the spoken word embedded into images: A Native Hawaiian pule (chant) and a multi-view timelapse of Puʻukohola heiau, Kohala, Hawaiʻi by Jesse Stephen

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