Aceptado para publicación:

31-octubre-2017

Recibido para revisión:

03-abril-2017

REVISTA CHAKIÑAN, 2017, Nº.3, DICIEMBRE, (20-40)

ISSN 2550-6722

THE ONTOLOGY OF THE DOT

LA ONTOLOGÍA DEL PUNTO ARQUEOLÓGICO

RESUMEN

ABSTRACT

Along with the technics that allows archaeology to adopt a precise knowledge about the com-

position of the materiality, also exists a critical thought that claims for take into account expe-

rience, perception and creativity. In the latter, we find Art-Archaeology approach. With this at

background emerged the idea of the presence and the ontology of the ‘dot’ in archaeology, iden-

tified in the ongoing process of the attendance of a meeting at Kyoto, in the excavation of a

simulated site, in the survey of an unidentified site and in a short research about Prehistoric

tattoo. This idea, in its explicit simplicity, is part of a creative thought situated in the roots of

the archaeological practice. In this paper I reflect about this through an artistic photo-essay that

is at the same time an artistic and theoretical exercise, with the intention to identify the existen-

ce of the ‘dot’ in different dimensions of archaeology, and to make theory making art.

Keywords: archaeology; art; creativity; dot; theory.

Junto con las técnicas que permiten a la arqueología adoptar un conocimiento preciso sobre la

composición de la materialidad, existen otros modos de pensamiento crítico que frente a ello

reclaman tener en cuenta la experiencia, la percepción y la creatividad. Dentro de esta segunda

tendencia se encuentra la del Arte-Arqueología. Con ello en mente, en el transcurso de la asis-

tencia a un congreso en Kioto, en la excavación de un yacimiento simulado, de la prospección

de un yacimiento contemporáneo desconocido y de una pequeña investigación sobre el tatuaje

prehistórico, emergió la idea de la presencia y ontología del ‘punto’ en arqueología. Esta idea,

en su simpleza explícita, forma parte de un entramado de pensamientos creativos situados en

las bases de la práctica arqueológica, sobre los que se reflexiona en este trabajo a través de un

foto-ensayo artístico que es al mismo tiempo un ejercicio artístico y teórico, con la intención de

identificar la situación del ‘punto’ en diferentes dimensiones presentes en la arqueología y de

teorizar creando arte.

Palabras clave: arqueología; arte; creatividad; punto; teoría.

José Antonio Mármol Martínez

Universidad Complutense Madrid, España

tic78josemarmol@hotmail.com

REVISTA CHAKIÑAN, 2017, Nº.3, DICIEMBRE, (20-40)

ISSN 2550-6722

INTRODUCTION

In this paper, I explore the constitution of a

concept, the archaeological dot, in the

process of making and visualizing a photo-

graphic essay. This is an ocularcentric and

visual work, in which a pre-stablished cate-

gory (the dot) is incorporated to the percep-

tion of the material world. I will use dots as

a hybrid entities identified in the ongoing

fieldwork. The aim is to exemplify an alter-

native to hegemonic techno-science, unders-

tanding the Past as a palimpsest created in

the hands of archaeologists whose labour

has been understood around textual, meta-

phorical concepts as deep digging, detective

work, cleaning and restoration of the frag-

mentation and so on (eg. Shanks and Pear-

son 2001). In this sense, objectivity is an

illusory category rooted in the natural practi-

ces of science located in the structure of

modernity (Fernández 2006). The study of

the Past is also concerned with senses,

nostalgias, melancholia, in a fluid world.

The first surrealist group of 1924 discovered

that under observable reality - this we classi-

fy with modernist, Renacentist categories

(Renfrew 2003) - there were another alterna-

tive worlds. The surrealists used these reali-

ties to critique the hegemonic culture which

led to injustices and deception after World

War I (Clifford 1988). Some of these artists,

like the Spanish Salvador Dalí, tried to com-

bine science and art under this point of view.

Others, like Michel Leiris or Georges Batai-

lle worked with the firsts important French

ethnographers, traveling to Africa for reco-

ver interesting objects (Clifford 1988). This

“ethnographic-surrealism” changed the

ethnography of that time by means to consi-

der alternative ontological realities apart of

the Western one.

Surrealism and ethnography also introduced

the very idea of fragmentation as category

for the analysis of the world. Although this

idea is based on some ocularcentric tropes

like the existence of a pre-abstract reality

which is re-built through the fragments, is to

say, a pre-establish plan of action guided by

the final income to be made, the idea is

about to break the naïve knowledge based

on artificial epistemologies. In the 30s, frag-

mentation appeared as the stratigraphic

understanding of these several realities.

Indeed psychologist Sigmund Freud was

seduced by this idea, like his work about the

stratigraphic excavation of the mind shows

(Simonetti 2015). This means that art and

archaeology, together from the beginnings

of epistemology, entered in a new field.

Archaeology and surrealism bumped into

each other, sharing much more than the idea

of stratigraphy.

Until the material turn, archaeology have

been long understood as a cultural produc-

tion, based on built something from the

union and interpretation of fragments. This

were accompanied with metaphors about

collage, assemblage, and so on, reinforced

by textual theory and the idea of the cons-

truction of knowledge (eg. Shanks 2001,

2012; Shanks and Pearson 2001). The incor-

poration of fieldwork to this production

made appear the concept of discovery.

Knowledge would be created by transfor-

ming materials of nature into significant

culture (Egdeworth 2003). This means to

think that things only exists if are transmu-

ted to culture, built over a given world. To

propose an alternative, we can talk about the

emergence of knowledge: far from dichoto-

mic concepts (nature/culture, body/mind,

etc.) knowledge would emerge in the physi-

cal correspondence with the world, through

senses -there is not a clear boundary

between these dichotomies, since all are

incorporated to the ongoing work in antici-

pation (Ingold 2001, 2013; Ingold and

Hallam 2007). It is not to make something

cultural from nature, but let things to emerge

in action where we can incorporate all kinds

of knowledge (Simonetti 2013, 2015). We

are guided by the ontology of materials, not

by the understandings of the record as a text

nor materials as source for culture as separa-

ted fields. Things owns live stories far from

our control. Like surrealists, we must accept

the existence of several ontological realities.

This proposition is epitomized in this

photo-essay. This work involves a theoreti-

cal reflection on the creative processes of

the archaeological practice through pairs of

photographs. In every case, the first photo

tries to represent a part of the site over which

the 'archaeological dot' is superimposed, a

kind of epistemological intervention that

guide our interpretation of the site, in the

second pic. This let us to question issues of

epistemology and ontology in the fieldwork.

It is there the archaeological dot? Do it

exist? It is just a category? How the practice

is modified by dots? The identification of

the dot means to mobilize many resources

from its perception, the shoot of the camera,

the digital edition, and so on. In all these

steps of the process memories, intentions

and senses raised up -it is not just a mental

or cultural work.

In recent times, we have seen the apparition

of new interesting approaches on the line of

Art-Archaeology and Creative Archaeolo-

gies. Many artworks from contemporary

artists has been used to exemplify theoreti-

cal concepts or to explain the art of the

people of the Past (eg. Renfrew 2003;

Cochrane and Russell 2013; Valdez-Tullet

and Chittock 2016 among others). In theore-

tical terms, art opens new creative ways to

understand the nature of archaeology.

However, the point is to not to understand

art as modernist production of final incomes

to be seen, but as creative processes that lies

in every movements of life. It is not art

history nor the analysis of artworks of

others; actually, it is not about definitive

specular results, artworks. It is about a crea-

tive attitude towards archaeological practi-

ce. This approach, in my opinion, differs

from the textual approach to theory and

practice. Therefore, in this paper, I do not

follow a distinction between art and theory;

my aim is to present a practical framework

to understand the archaeological assump-

tions proposed.

REVISTA CHAKIÑAN, 2017, Nº.3, DICIEMBRE, (20-40)

ISSN 2550-6722

In this paper, I explore the constitution of a

concept, the archaeological dot, in the

process of making and visualizing a photo-

graphic essay. This is an ocularcentric and

visual work, in which a pre-stablished cate-

gory (the dot) is incorporated to the percep-

tion of the material world. I will use dots as

a hybrid entities identified in the ongoing

fieldwork. The aim is to exemplify an alter-

native to hegemonic techno-science, unders-

tanding the Past as a palimpsest created in

the hands of archaeologists whose labour

has been understood around textual, meta-

phorical concepts as deep digging, detective

work, cleaning and restoration of the frag-

mentation and so on (eg. Shanks and Pear-

son 2001). In this sense, objectivity is an

illusory category rooted in the natural practi-

ces of science located in the structure of

modernity (Fernández 2006). The study of

the Past is also concerned with senses,

nostalgias, melancholia, in a fluid world.

The first surrealist group of 1924 discovered

that under observable reality - this we classi-

fy with modernist, Renacentist categories

(Renfrew 2003) - there were another alterna-

tive worlds. The surrealists used these reali-

ties to critique the hegemonic culture which

led to injustices and deception after World

War I (Clifford 1988). Some of these artists,

like the Spanish Salvador Dalí, tried to com-

bine science and art under this point of view.

Others, like Michel Leiris or Georges Batai-

lle worked with the firsts important French

ethnographers, traveling to Africa for reco-

ver interesting objects (Clifford 1988). This

“ethnographic-surrealism” changed the

ethnography of that time by means to consi-

der alternative ontological realities apart of

the Western one.

Surrealism and ethnography also introduced

the very idea of fragmentation as category

for the analysis of the world. Although this

idea is based on some ocularcentric tropes

like the existence of a pre-abstract reality

which is re-built through the fragments, is to

say, a pre-establish plan of action guided by

the final income to be made, the idea is

about to break the naïve knowledge based

on artificial epistemologies. In the 30s, frag-

mentation appeared as the stratigraphic

understanding of these several realities.

Indeed psychologist Sigmund Freud was

seduced by this idea, like his work about the

stratigraphic excavation of the mind shows

(Simonetti 2015). This means that art and

archaeology, together from the beginnings

of epistemology, entered in a new field.

Archaeology and surrealism bumped into

each other, sharing much more than the idea

of stratigraphy.

Until the material turn, archaeology have

been long understood as a cultural produc-

tion, based on built something from the

union and interpretation of fragments. This

were accompanied with metaphors about

collage, assemblage, and so on, reinforced

by textual theory and the idea of the cons-

truction of knowledge (eg. Shanks 2001,

2012; Shanks and Pearson 2001). The incor-

poration of fieldwork to this production

made appear the concept of discovery.

Knowledge would be created by transfor-

ming materials of nature into significant

culture (Egdeworth 2003). This means to

think that things only exists if are transmu-

ted to culture, built over a given world. To

propose an alternative, we can talk about the

emergence of knowledge: far from dichoto-

mic concepts (nature/culture, body/mind,

etc.) knowledge would emerge in the physi-

cal correspondence with the world, through

senses -there is not a clear boundary

between these dichotomies, since all are

incorporated to the ongoing work in antici-

pation (Ingold 2001, 2013; Ingold and

Hallam 2007). It is not to make something

cultural from nature, but let things to emerge

in action where we can incorporate all kinds

of knowledge (Simonetti 2013, 2015). We

are guided by the ontology of materials, not

by the understandings of the record as a text

nor materials as source for culture as separa-

ted fields. Things owns live stories far from

our control. Like surrealists, we must accept

the existence of several ontological realities.

This proposition is epitomized in this

photo-essay. This work involves a theoreti-

cal reflection on the creative processes of

the archaeological practice through pairs of

photographs. In every case, the first photo

tries to represent a part of the site over which

the 'archaeological dot' is superimposed, a

kind of epistemological intervention that

guide our interpretation of the site, in the

second pic. This let us to question issues of

epistemology and ontology in the fieldwork.

It is there the archaeological dot? Do it

exist? It is just a category? How the practice

is modified by dots? The identification of

the dot means to mobilize many resources

from its perception, the shoot of the camera,

the digital edition, and so on. In all these

steps of the process memories, intentions

and senses raised up -it is not just a mental

or cultural work.

In recent times, we have seen the apparition

of new interesting approaches on the line of

Art-Archaeology and Creative Archaeolo-

gies. Many artworks from contemporary

artists has been used to exemplify theoreti-

cal concepts or to explain the art of the

people of the Past (eg. Renfrew 2003;

Cochrane and Russell 2013; Valdez-Tullet

and Chittock 2016 among others). In theore-

tical terms, art opens new creative ways to

understand the nature of archaeology.

However, the point is to not to understand

art as modernist production of final incomes

to be seen, but as creative processes that lies

in every movements of life. It is not art

history nor the analysis of artworks of

others; actually, it is not about definitive

specular results, artworks. It is about a crea-

tive attitude towards archaeological practi-

ce. This approach, in my opinion, differs

from the textual approach to theory and

practice. Therefore, in this paper, I do not

follow a distinction between art and theory;

my aim is to present a practical framework

to understand the archaeological assump-

tions proposed.

The idea of this essay comes to me at Kyoto,

Japan, when I attended the eight World

Archaeological Congress (WAC-8) 2016,

where due to the Japanese understandings of

creativity I started to think about art such in

a way far from genuine authorship and inno-

vative originality. As an archaeologist and

artist, it represented a long way to walk.

The artwork I propose, “The ontology of the

dot”, is about the use of the 'dot' -or 'point',

as in Spanish we use the same word for

both- in actions at archaeological contexts,

understanding the 'dot' as a concrete physi-

cal place that articulates several dimensions

of archaeological practice, in which it's

possible to superimpose one of the defini-

tions given for the 'dot'. However, this will

be explained later. The artwork was created

in several spaces where I identified new uses

for this. Therefore, I took photographs along

all my archaeological activity in 2016, in the

excavation at a simulated site; in the survey

of an unidentified site in Monte Miravete

(Murcia, Spain); in the short research about

prehistoric tattoo; and in the attendance of a

congress. The search for these points were

then extended to both simple and complex

fieldwork, paper lecture, and meeting expe-

rience.

METHODOLOGY

In these activities I identified some points

that, looked at the distance, gave the sense of

unity. Carefully observation shows how

these points are like material anchors to

movements, attitudes, boundaries, memo-

ries, knowledge and signification, moving

all the fieldwork around them. Indeed field-

work are based on the accumulation of this

kind of dots. However, it is not common to

treat these points as epistemologically

relevant elements. Since these points

depends of a visual identification in my

essay, the question is if these points could be

also ontological.

So, guided by inspiration and informed by

photo-ethnography (a kind of ethnographic

method based on informal visual material in

which perception and experience are privile-

ged in interpretation at the expense of

textual categories, see eg. Moreno 2013), I

shoot with both my smartphone’s camera

and my reflex camera once I identify one of

these dots. There was not any technical or

specific aesthetic requirements, and in most

cases, the pic was product of casualty. The

only pre-defined issue was the frame of the

pic in order to not to lose any contextual

detail. Once the pic was done, I keep it sepa-

rately on a digital folder, with dates, infor-

mation, thoughts, and so on. I edited every

pic with PhotoScape software to convert

them on black and white in order to be able

to identify easily the original from the edited

one. Then I created a digital document

where I introduced every pair of pics, hori-

zontally. The last step was to mark out

where I identified the dot, using a grey

circular-shape figure.

These pics are presented in pairs, in a dual

opposition where we can see a part of the

site and the edited image in black and white

with the grey point indicating where I identi-

fied the archaeological dot. With this, we

can compare our own awareness of the dot

in the unedited pic in comparison with the

edited one in which I act as guider for the

viewer, and then corroborate how epistemo-

logy is randomly superimposed to ontologi-

cal world.

Of course, it is not an unproblematic exerci-

se. First, because even the original photogra-

ph is in itself a mediation between materials

and the representation, spectators, and

author. The veracity of the pic is just in the

belief of its nature as record. Second, the

action inside the essay is only visual, about

spectators and artifacts to be seen, this

seems to be contrary to my intention to

avoid ocularcentrism. Beyond these two

apparently contradictions, the visual-essay

works just as inspirational exercise if the

viewer is able to incorporate its own expe-

riences to it. Therefore, here is not any aspi-

ration to truth.

tion? The visual essay I propose plays with

irony when identify textual symbols, dots,

over the material world. Instead of start from

pre-stablished texts, texts are being created

through the visual interpretation of inexis-

tent textual symbols.

REVISTA CHAKIÑAN, 2017, Nº.3, DICIEMBRE, (20-40)

ISSN 2550-6722

The idea of this essay comes to me at Kyoto,

Japan, when I attended the eight World

Archaeological Congress (WAC-8) 2016,

where due to the Japanese understandings of

creativity I started to think about art such in

a way far from genuine authorship and inno-

vative originality. As an archaeologist and

artist, it represented a long way to walk.

The artwork I propose, “The ontology of the

dot”, is about the use of the 'dot' -or 'point',

as in Spanish we use the same word for

both- in actions at archaeological contexts,

understanding the 'dot' as a concrete physi-

cal place that articulates several dimensions

of archaeological practice, in which it's

possible to superimpose one of the defini-

tions given for the 'dot'. However, this will

be explained later. The artwork was created

in several spaces where I identified new uses

for this. Therefore, I took photographs along

all my archaeological activity in 2016, in the

excavation at a simulated site; in the survey

of an unidentified site in Monte Miravete

(Murcia, Spain); in the short research about

prehistoric tattoo; and in the attendance of a

congress. The search for these points were

then extended to both simple and complex

fieldwork, paper lecture, and meeting expe-

rience.

ART-ARCHAEOLOGY

AS APPROACH

In these activities I identified some points

that, looked at the distance, gave the sense of

unity. Carefully observation shows how

these points are like material anchors to

movements, attitudes, boundaries, memo-

ries, knowledge and signification, moving

all the fieldwork around them. Indeed field-

work are based on the accumulation of this

kind of dots. However, it is not common to

treat these points as epistemologically

relevant elements. Since these points

depends of a visual identification in my

essay, the question is if these points could be

also ontological.

So, guided by inspiration and informed by

photo-ethnography (a kind of ethnographic

method based on informal visual material in

which perception and experience are privile-

ged in interpretation at the expense of

textual categories, see eg. Moreno 2013), I

shoot with both my smartphone’s camera

and my reflex camera once I identify one of

these dots. There was not any technical or

specific aesthetic requirements, and in most

cases, the pic was product of casualty. The

only pre-defined issue was the frame of the

pic in order to not to lose any contextual

detail. Once the pic was done, I keep it sepa-

rately on a digital folder, with dates, infor-

mation, thoughts, and so on. I edited every

pic with PhotoScape software to convert

them on black and white in order to be able

to identify easily the original from the edited

one. Then I created a digital document

where I introduced every pair of pics, hori-

zontally. The last step was to mark out

where I identified the dot, using a grey

circular-shape figure.

These pics are presented in pairs, in a dual

opposition where we can see a part of the

site and the edited image in black and white

with the grey point indicating where I identi-

fied the archaeological dot. With this, we

can compare our own awareness of the dot

in the unedited pic in comparison with the

edited one in which I act as guider for the

viewer, and then corroborate how epistemo-

logy is randomly superimposed to ontologi-

cal world.

Of course, it is not an unproblematic exerci-

se. First, because even the original photogra-

ph is in itself a mediation between materials

and the representation, spectators, and

author. The veracity of the pic is just in the

belief of its nature as record. Second, the

action inside the essay is only visual, about

spectators and artifacts to be seen, this

seems to be contrary to my intention to

avoid ocularcentrism. Beyond these two

apparently contradictions, the visual-essay

works just as inspirational exercise if the

viewer is able to incorporate its own expe-

riences to it. Therefore, here is not any aspi-

ration to truth.

In the context of the material turn, the

distance between abstract theory and physi-

cal world is more narrow day per day (Gon-

zález-Ruibal 2012). In this interstice, art for

theory has reach our discipline bringing new

ways to understand materiality.

It is clear that the techniques and thoughts of

artists has been used to do science along the

time, as we can see in the work of Leonardo

or in the notion of science as “art of…”, of

the Renaissance. Our categories to organize

reality comes from these times in which

descriptions were made by the use of

drawings (Renfrew 2003).

This is also clear in the first’s ethnographies

done by the Spanish priests in the communi-

ties they contacted with, through methods

based on drawings with the aim to give faith

about what they saw. Now, art historians

analyze many of these depictions. The same

situation happens when we talk about

archaeological drawings if we understand

them just as visual artifacts. Further reflec-

tions arises through Joseph Kosuth's “One

and three Chairs” (1965) where a reflection

about issues of veracity, representation,

textuality and ontology could be made.

A critical attitude towards archaeology ask

for question taken for granted assumptions.

These kind of reflections has been made in

recent years in the works about critical

theory (eg. Fernández 2006), and by alterna-

tive understandings of knowledge, like

senses studies (eg. Hamilakis 2014; Simone-

tti 2013; Ingold 2013), the peripatetic video

(Weebmor 2005; Witmore 2006; also Van

Dyke 2006), or sounds (Witmore 2004), etc.

Other works put their focus on the limita-

tions of methodology, through archaeologi-

cal ethnography (eg. Hamilakis, Pluciennik,

and Tarlow 2001; Hamilakis and Anag-

nostopoulos 2009; Hamilakis, Anagnosto-

poulos and Ifantidis 2009; Edgeworth 2010,

2006, 2003; Castañeda and Matthews 2008;

among others). In line with these alternative

understandings of the practice, we find

themes mixing art and archaeology (eg.

Tilley, Hamilton, and Bender 2000; Shanks

and Pearson 2001; Shanks 2004, 2012;

Valdez-Tullet and Chittock 2016; Cochrane

and Russell 2013; Georghiu and Barth 2018,

incoming; Marmol 2017, among others). As

we saw above, this last theme could be

re-defined far from the prevalence of final

incomes, especially with proposals from

Art-Anthropology (eg. Ingold and Hallam

2007; also Schneider 2017).

In this line, art understood as creative

process allow us to focus on a difference:

while techno-science present a propositional

approach to the world, based on the search

of truth, specular artifacts, and final results,

art provides a non-propositional, practical

and growing knowledge. It does not need to

be explained and depend more on experien-

ce and perception than to schemes of

description.

The relation between art and archaeology in

practice has been common as exemplify “Le

dejeuner sous l’herbe” (1983) by the French

artist Daniel Spoerri and the French

archaeologist Jean-Paul Demoulé, among

other examples, especially from British

artists like Mark Dion with his “Tate

Thames Dig” (1999-2000). In addition, we

can find examples all over the world like the

Art&Archaeology Forum in Kyoto, Japan,

where artists are invited to collaborate with

archaeologists. More archaeo-artistic coin-

cidences could be found in the archaeologi-

cal fieldwork in the Monte Miravete site at

Murcia (Spain), done by a strong Art-Ar-

chaeology approach. My personal experien-

ce involves also our work in the Archaeo-

drome, a fake archaeological site of 5x5

meters square where we do artistic and

archaeological practices (figure 1).

In this place, I identified several processes

about collection, fragmentation and earthing

(opposed to excavation) in the ongoing

process of the creation of the entire site that

involved performance and aesthetics,

memories and improvisation. This was

conceptualized in my artwork “Archaeolo-

gical Contra-Museum” presented at Sighta-

tions exhibition at Southampton, UK (TAG

meeting 2016).

More examples around aesthetics are the

works of the Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei, who

use elements of the Chinese Heritage to

create pieces through destroying real

archaeological artifacts as Neolithic urns

from the Han period (“Han dynasty urn”

(1995), “Han Dynasty urn with Coca-cola

logo” (1994)). Other artists working on field

are Arman with his ‘packed’ rubbish-art;

Simon Fujiwara with his works “Phallusies”

(2010) and “Frozen’s” (2010); Daniel

Guzman and his artwork about the presence

of the archaeological in the daily life throu-

gh his piece “La dificultad de cruzar un

campo de tierra cualquiera” (2012); and also

great painters like Picasso who used prehis-

toric art as inspiration. We could find many

artists like Dragos Georghiu or Richard

Long in Land art, and interesting proposals

in Conceptual art, such Duchamp itself, and

his understanding of art as materialization of

ideas. One of my favorite art style is Street

art because involves the creation of new

sites through changing the meanings of the

public space. The creation of art is an

archaeological evidence itself, because the

artwork always would represent the artist's

agency (according to art anthropologist

Alfred Gell, in Layton 2003:450). I do not

think so -art would be archaeological due to

common creative processes, not because

superimposed abstractions, as agency, to

final incomes to be seen.

About photography and ethnography

To avoid ocularcentrism in this visual enter-

prise, I decided to manage a direct observa-

tion and participation on the field, and then

recorded with ethnographic methods. Some

authors in archaeological ethnography have

pointed out that archaeological knowledge

is not only built with social organization and

hierarchies (eg. Edgeworth 2006), but is

discovered in the practice where natural raw

materials are transformed into cultural infor-

mation (Edgeworth 2003). As I explained

above, I think instead that knowledge emer-

ges in the practice. My interest to include

senses to ethnography then led me to

photo-ethnography (Moreno 2013), and to

the work of Hamilakis and Infantidis (2016)

in Kalaureia (Poros, Greece) which I use as

inspiration for my own photo-ethnography

at Monte Miravete site (Murcia, Spain)

(Marmol 2016, incoming). This kind of

approach combines anthropology, archaeo-

logy and art.

It make contrast with the techno-quantitati-

ve methods popular in current archaeologi-

cal research. Like a secret path in the hege-

mony of the visual, it is a form of auto-eth-

nography where reflexivity is opposed to

traditional distances of the research like the

Other’s context, observations, interviews,

narratives, and so on. It turns its interests to

all subjects and contexts of research. These

elements not depends of the skills of a

photographer or videographer, because they

have value anyhow -it moves between the

academic and the artistic (Moreno 2013).

The mainstream conception is that the

intemporality of photography, the photogra-

phs as immutable mobile artifacts (Van

Dyke 2006) would make them good tools

for support the processes of social analysis

(Moreno 2013). However, photography is

not independent. If we understand them as

cultural artifacts, they are more than a repre-

sentation of reality. We find in them discour-

ses that imposes its own regimes of signifi-

cation, requiring a context of interpretation

to understand its meanings. To going deep

into them is to discover social relationships

of production, consume, power, knowledge,

etc., modern relations that confirms our

distance from the reality seen. In ocularcen-

tric terms, to photograph is a social action

and not only a merely technic achievement

(Moreno 2013). Its truth, to follow a Fou-

cauldian concept, is an effect of power. Once

decoded its contents, the pic can become an

artifact full of symbolic potential (Moreno

2013), almost a thing that could be object of

archaeological analysis, like the pics of

Syrian refugee’s materiality at Lesbos

(Greece) done by the journalist Santi Pala-

cios.

In photo-ethnography, the pic is not only a

passive artifact for illustration of acts but

also allows visualizing concepts and facts

to which understand environments, bodily

dispositions and relational interactions (Mo-

reno 2013). The visual sources used for this

kind of ethnography may be selected from

unintentional records like selfies, scientific

photographies of materials, pics from the

excavation, newspaper or even papers and

meetings. Through photography, it is possi-

ble to capture these details of daily life to be

analyzed, and to incorporate the “native

voice” of the people represented in its inter-

pretation (Moreno 2013:128). Here the

visually of the artifact go further than textual

incomes such descriptions, since provokes

the emergence of free expression, sensibili-

ties produced at the moment of the shoot,

and to “think with eyes and hands” (Ruiz

Zapatero 2014:65. Translation mine). In the

moment of the shoot, the materiality of the

camera, the hands, the eyes, the knowledge

and the intentions of the author, and the

always changing material world to be captu-

red are corresponding to each other, making

possible the moment of photography in the

conjunction of all of them. Independently of

the result, this process implies a great capa-

city of improvisation that makes the photo-

graph an incidental income of the ethnogra-

phic process.

In archaeological photography, we add

another element of signification, the

memory (Ruiz Zapatero 2014:56). Inside

every photograph, there are several tempo-

ralities, making memory a guiding exercise

to be made. However, its intention of 'truth'

hides its potential and free signification, as

happens with the struggle between needless-

ly to be explained art, and scientific obliga-

tory explanation.

It is common to think there is a ‘strategy of

representation’ that constitutes under inten-

tional agendas what is represented (Ruiz

2014; Van Dyke 2006). This heterogeneous

understanding needs an sceptic attitude

which start with doubting about the photo-

graphic veracity itself: considering Karl

Heider’s concept 'Rashômon effect' (Heider

1988) we are aware of the several interpreta-

tions, equally rightful, that archaeologists

have, which are in conflict with the ones of

others. There is not a unique truth even in

the simplest processes like photography.

The photograph have an evocative power

articulating stories and connecting different

memories, sometimes about a moment that

does not already exist (Shanks and Svabo

2013; Ruiz 2014). They connects the unreal

with the real, recreating new experiences

providing new meanings (Webmoor 2005).

Then the world appears as an entity that can

be captured, paused a divided into stable

temporal periods (Bergson 1963). The pic

requires the use of an archaeological imagi-

nation (eg. Shanks 2012), more sensual than

textual. Photographs are itself a mystery that

the viewer has to decode, making emerge

inspirational sensations and close relations

between time and space, bodies and

artifacts.

Under specular terms, the object of study is

approached from the aesthetic, in the limits

of a mainstream analysis, which along

objectification, institutionalization and

legitimation establish such conditions for

the analysis of collective production of

knowledge (Moreno 2013).

What photo-ethnography proposes is to

transcend the artificial limitations of our

subjects of study through sensibilities, with

the addition of other corporal, sensual

elements and kinetics that participate in the

flowing of the reality that has been 'captu-

red'. Symbols, signs, attitudes, gestures, and

footprints, from all these the photo-ethno-

grapher obtain new perspectives about

signification (Moreno 2013). Why just sepa-

rate all this experience in little parts to fit

them into strictly processes of classifica-

tion? The visual essay I propose plays with

irony when identify textual symbols, dots,

over the material world. Instead of start from

pre-stablished texts, texts are being created

through the visual interpretation of inexis-

tent textual symbols.

REVISTA CHAKIÑAN, 2017, Nº.3, DICIEMBRE, (20-40)

ISSN 2550-6722

In the context of the material turn, the

distance between abstract theory and physi-

cal world is more narrow day per day (Gon-

zález-Ruibal 2012). In this interstice, art for

theory has reach our discipline bringing new

ways to understand materiality.

It is clear that the techniques and thoughts of

artists has been used to do science along the

time, as we can see in the work of Leonardo

or in the notion of science as “art of…”, of

the Renaissance. Our categories to organize

reality comes from these times in which

descriptions were made by the use of

drawings (Renfrew 2003).

This is also clear in the first’s ethnographies

done by the Spanish priests in the communi-

ties they contacted with, through methods

based on drawings with the aim to give faith

about what they saw. Now, art historians

analyze many of these depictions. The same

situation happens when we talk about

archaeological drawings if we understand

them just as visual artifacts. Further reflec-

tions arises through Joseph Kosuth's “One

and three Chairs” (1965) where a reflection

about issues of veracity, representation,

textuality and ontology could be made.

A critical attitude towards archaeology ask

for question taken for granted assumptions.

These kind of reflections has been made in

recent years in the works about critical

theory (eg. Fernández 2006), and by alterna-

tive understandings of knowledge, like

senses studies (eg. Hamilakis 2014; Simone-

tti 2013; Ingold 2013), the peripatetic video

(Weebmor 2005; Witmore 2006; also Van

Dyke 2006), or sounds (Witmore 2004), etc.

Other works put their focus on the limita-

tions of methodology, through archaeologi-

cal ethnography (eg. Hamilakis, Pluciennik,

and Tarlow 2001; Hamilakis and Anag-

nostopoulos 2009; Hamilakis, Anagnosto-

poulos and Ifantidis 2009; Edgeworth 2010,

2006, 2003; Castañeda and Matthews 2008;

among others). In line with these alternative

understandings of the practice, we find

themes mixing art and archaeology (eg.

Tilley, Hamilton, and Bender 2000; Shanks

and Pearson 2001; Shanks 2004, 2012;

Valdez-Tullet and Chittock 2016; Cochrane

and Russell 2013; Georghiu and Barth 2018,

incoming; Marmol 2017, among others). As

we saw above, this last theme could be

re-defined far from the prevalence of final

incomes, especially with proposals from

Art-Anthropology (eg. Ingold and Hallam

2007; also Schneider 2017).

In this line, art understood as creative

process allow us to focus on a difference:

while techno-science present a propositional

approach to the world, based on the search

of truth, specular artifacts, and final results,

art provides a non-propositional, practical

and growing knowledge. It does not need to

be explained and depend more on experien-

ce and perception than to schemes of

description.

The relation between art and archaeology in

practice has been common as exemplify “Le

dejeuner sous l’herbe” (1983) by the French

artist Daniel Spoerri and the French

archaeologist Jean-Paul Demoulé, among

other examples, especially from British

artists like Mark Dion with his “Tate

Thames Dig” (1999-2000). In addition, we

can find examples all over the world like the

Art&Archaeology Forum in Kyoto, Japan,

where artists are invited to collaborate with

archaeologists. More archaeo-artistic coin-

cidences could be found in the archaeologi-

cal fieldwork in the Monte Miravete site at

Murcia (Spain), done by a strong Art-Ar-

chaeology approach. My personal experien-

ce involves also our work in the Archaeo-

drome, a fake archaeological site of 5x5

meters square where we do artistic and

archaeological practices (figure 1).

In this place, I identified several processes

about collection, fragmentation and earthing

(opposed to excavation) in the ongoing

process of the creation of the entire site that

involved performance and aesthetics,

memories and improvisation. This was

conceptualized in my artwork “Archaeolo-

gical Contra-Museum” presented at Sighta-

tions exhibition at Southampton, UK (TAG

meeting 2016).

More examples around aesthetics are the

works of the Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei, who

use elements of the Chinese Heritage to

create pieces through destroying real

archaeological artifacts as Neolithic urns

from the Han period (“Han dynasty urn”

(1995), “Han Dynasty urn with Coca-cola

logo” (1994)). Other artists working on field

are Arman with his ‘packed’ rubbish-art;

Simon Fujiwara with his works “Phallusies”

(2010) and “Frozen’s” (2010); Daniel

Guzman and his artwork about the presence

of the archaeological in the daily life throu-

gh his piece “La dificultad de cruzar un

campo de tierra cualquiera” (2012); and also

great painters like Picasso who used prehis-

toric art as inspiration. We could find many

artists like Dragos Georghiu or Richard

Long in Land art, and interesting proposals

in Conceptual art, such Duchamp itself, and

his understanding of art as materialization of

ideas. One of my favorite art style is Street

art because involves the creation of new

sites through changing the meanings of the

public space. The creation of art is an

archaeological evidence itself, because the

artwork always would represent the artist's

agency (according to art anthropologist

Alfred Gell, in Layton 2003:450). I do not

think so -art would be archaeological due to

common creative processes, not because

superimposed abstractions, as agency, to

final incomes to be seen.

About photography and ethnography

To avoid ocularcentrism in this visual enter-

prise, I decided to manage a direct observa-

tion and participation on the field, and then

recorded with ethnographic methods. Some

authors in archaeological ethnography have

pointed out that archaeological knowledge

is not only built with social organization and

hierarchies (eg. Edgeworth 2006), but is

discovered in the practice where natural raw

materials are transformed into cultural infor-

mation (Edgeworth 2003). As I explained

above, I think instead that knowledge emer-

ges in the practice. My interest to include

senses to ethnography then led me to

photo-ethnography (Moreno 2013), and to

the work of Hamilakis and Infantidis (2016)

in Kalaureia (Poros, Greece) which I use as

inspiration for my own photo-ethnography

at Monte Miravete site (Murcia, Spain)

(Marmol 2016, incoming). This kind of

approach combines anthropology, archaeo-

logy and art.

It make contrast with the techno-quantitati-

ve methods popular in current archaeologi-

cal research. Like a secret path in the hege-

mony of the visual, it is a form of auto-eth-

nography where reflexivity is opposed to

traditional distances of the research like the

Other’s context, observations, interviews,

narratives, and so on. It turns its interests to

all subjects and contexts of research. These

elements not depends of the skills of a

photographer or videographer, because they

have value anyhow -it moves between the

academic and the artistic (Moreno 2013).

The mainstream conception is that the

intemporality of photography, the photogra-

phs as immutable mobile artifacts (Van

Dyke 2006) would make them good tools

for support the processes of social analysis

(Moreno 2013). However, photography is

not independent. If we understand them as

cultural artifacts, they are more than a repre-

sentation of reality. We find in them discour-

ses that imposes its own regimes of signifi-

cation, requiring a context of interpretation

to understand its meanings. To going deep

into them is to discover social relationships

of production, consume, power, knowledge,

etc., modern relations that confirms our

distance from the reality seen. In ocularcen-

tric terms, to photograph is a social action

and not only a merely technic achievement

(Moreno 2013). Its truth, to follow a Fou-

cauldian concept, is an effect of power. Once

decoded its contents, the pic can become an

artifact full of symbolic potential (Moreno

2013), almost a thing that could be object of

archaeological analysis, like the pics of

Syrian refugee’s materiality at Lesbos

(Greece) done by the journalist Santi Pala-

cios.

In photo-ethnography, the pic is not only a

passive artifact for illustration of acts but

also allows visualizing concepts and facts

to which understand environments, bodily

dispositions and relational interactions (Mo-

reno 2013). The visual sources used for this

kind of ethnography may be selected from

unintentional records like selfies, scientific

photographies of materials, pics from the

excavation, newspaper or even papers and

meetings. Through photography, it is possi-

ble to capture these details of daily life to be

analyzed, and to incorporate the “native

voice” of the people represented in its inter-

pretation (Moreno 2013:128). Here the

visually of the artifact go further than textual

incomes such descriptions, since provokes

the emergence of free expression, sensibili-

ties produced at the moment of the shoot,

and to “think with eyes and hands” (Ruiz

Zapatero 2014:65. Translation mine). In the

moment of the shoot, the materiality of the

camera, the hands, the eyes, the knowledge

and the intentions of the author, and the

always changing material world to be captu-

red are corresponding to each other, making

possible the moment of photography in the

conjunction of all of them. Independently of

the result, this process implies a great capa-

city of improvisation that makes the photo-

graph an incidental income of the ethnogra-

phic process.

In archaeological photography, we add

another element of signification, the

memory (Ruiz Zapatero 2014:56). Inside

every photograph, there are several tempo-

ralities, making memory a guiding exercise

to be made. However, its intention of 'truth'

hides its potential and free signification, as

happens with the struggle between needless-

ly to be explained art, and scientific obliga-

tory explanation.

It is common to think there is a ‘strategy of

representation’ that constitutes under inten-

tional agendas what is represented (Ruiz

2014; Van Dyke 2006). This heterogeneous

understanding needs an sceptic attitude

which start with doubting about the photo-

graphic veracity itself: considering Karl

Heider’s concept 'Rashômon effect' (Heider

1988) we are aware of the several interpreta-

tions, equally rightful, that archaeologists

have, which are in conflict with the ones of

others. There is not a unique truth even in

the simplest processes like photography.

The photograph have an evocative power

articulating stories and connecting different

memories, sometimes about a moment that

does not already exist (Shanks and Svabo

2013; Ruiz 2014). They connects the unreal

with the real, recreating new experiences

providing new meanings (Webmoor 2005).

Then the world appears as an entity that can

be captured, paused a divided into stable

temporal periods (Bergson 1963). The pic

requires the use of an archaeological imagi-

nation (eg. Shanks 2012), more sensual than

textual. Photographs are itself a mystery that

the viewer has to decode, making emerge

inspirational sensations and close relations

between time and space, bodies and

artifacts.

Under specular terms, the object of study is

approached from the aesthetic, in the limits

of a mainstream analysis, which along

objectification, institutionalization and

legitimation establish such conditions for

the analysis of collective production of

knowledge (Moreno 2013).

What photo-ethnography proposes is to

transcend the artificial limitations of our

subjects of study through sensibilities, with

the addition of other corporal, sensual

elements and kinetics that participate in the

flowing of the reality that has been 'captu-

red'. Symbols, signs, attitudes, gestures, and

footprints, from all these the photo-ethno-

grapher obtain new perspectives about

signification (Moreno 2013). Why just sepa-

rate all this experience in little parts to fit

them into strictly processes of classifica-

tion? The visual essay I propose plays with

irony when identify textual symbols, dots,

over the material world. Instead of start from

pre-stablished texts, texts are being created

through the visual interpretation of inexis-

tent textual symbols.

REVISTA CHAKIÑAN, 2017, Nº.3, DICIEMBRE, (20-40)

ISSN 2550-6722

In the context of the material turn, the

distance between abstract theory and physi-

cal world is more narrow day per day (Gon-

zález-Ruibal 2012). In this interstice, art for

theory has reach our discipline bringing new

ways to understand materiality.

It is clear that the techniques and thoughts of

artists has been used to do science along the

time, as we can see in the work of Leonardo

or in the notion of science as “art of…”, of

the Renaissance. Our categories to organize

reality comes from these times in which

descriptions were made by the use of

drawings (Renfrew 2003).

This is also clear in the first’s ethnographies

done by the Spanish priests in the communi-

ties they contacted with, through methods

based on drawings with the aim to give faith

about what they saw. Now, art historians

analyze many of these depictions. The same

situation happens when we talk about

archaeological drawings if we understand

them just as visual artifacts. Further reflec-

tions arises through Joseph Kosuth's “One

and three Chairs” (1965) where a reflection

about issues of veracity, representation,

textuality and ontology could be made.

A critical attitude towards archaeology ask

for question taken for granted assumptions.

These kind of reflections has been made in

recent years in the works about critical

theory (eg. Fernández 2006), and by alterna-

tive understandings of knowledge, like

senses studies (eg. Hamilakis 2014; Simone-

tti 2013; Ingold 2013), the peripatetic video

(Weebmor 2005; Witmore 2006; also Van

Dyke 2006), or sounds (Witmore 2004), etc.

Other works put their focus on the limita-

tions of methodology, through archaeologi-

cal ethnography (eg. Hamilakis, Pluciennik,

and Tarlow 2001; Hamilakis and Anag-

nostopoulos 2009; Hamilakis, Anagnosto-

poulos and Ifantidis 2009; Edgeworth 2010,

2006, 2003; Castañeda and Matthews 2008;

among others). In line with these alternative

understandings of the practice, we find

themes mixing art and archaeology (eg.

Tilley, Hamilton, and Bender 2000; Shanks

and Pearson 2001; Shanks 2004, 2012;

Valdez-Tullet and Chittock 2016; Cochrane

and Russell 2013; Georghiu and Barth 2018,

incoming; Marmol 2017, among others). As

we saw above, this last theme could be

re-defined far from the prevalence of final

incomes, especially with proposals from

Art-Anthropology (eg. Ingold and Hallam

2007; also Schneider 2017).

In this line, art understood as creative

process allow us to focus on a difference:

while techno-science present a propositional

approach to the world, based on the search

of truth, specular artifacts, and final results,

art provides a non-propositional, practical

and growing knowledge. It does not need to

be explained and depend more on experien-

ce and perception than to schemes of

description.

The relation between art and archaeology in

practice has been common as exemplify “Le

dejeuner sous l’herbe” (1983) by the French

artist Daniel Spoerri and the French

archaeologist Jean-Paul Demoulé, among

other examples, especially from British

artists like Mark Dion with his “Tate

Thames Dig” (1999-2000). In addition, we

can find examples all over the world like the

Art&Archaeology Forum in Kyoto, Japan,

where artists are invited to collaborate with

archaeologists. More archaeo-artistic coin-

cidences could be found in the archaeologi-

cal fieldwork in the Monte Miravete site at

Murcia (Spain), done by a strong Art-Ar-

chaeology approach. My personal experien-

ce involves also our work in the Archaeo-

drome, a fake archaeological site of 5x5

meters square where we do artistic and

archaeological practices (figure 1).

In this place, I identified several processes

about collection, fragmentation and earthing

(opposed to excavation) in the ongoing

process of the creation of the entire site that

involved performance and aesthetics,

memories and improvisation. This was

conceptualized in my artwork “Archaeolo-

gical Contra-Museum” presented at Sighta-

tions exhibition at Southampton, UK (TAG

meeting 2016).

More examples around aesthetics are the

works of the Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei, who

use elements of the Chinese Heritage to

create pieces through destroying real

archaeological artifacts as Neolithic urns

from the Han period (“Han dynasty urn”

(1995), “Han Dynasty urn with Coca-cola

logo” (1994)). Other artists working on field

are Arman with his ‘packed’ rubbish-art;

Simon Fujiwara with his works “Phallusies”

(2010) and “Frozen’s” (2010); Daniel

Guzman and his artwork about the presence

of the archaeological in the daily life throu-

gh his piece “La dificultad de cruzar un

campo de tierra cualquiera” (2012); and also

great painters like Picasso who used prehis-

toric art as inspiration. We could find many

artists like Dragos Georghiu or Richard

Long in Land art, and interesting proposals

in Conceptual art, such Duchamp itself, and

his understanding of art as materialization of

ideas. One of my favorite art style is Street

art because involves the creation of new

sites through changing the meanings of the

public space. The creation of art is an

archaeological evidence itself, because the

artwork always would represent the artist's

agency (according to art anthropologist

Alfred Gell, in Layton 2003:450). I do not

think so -art would be archaeological due to

common creative processes, not because

superimposed abstractions, as agency, to

final incomes to be seen.

About photography and ethnography

To avoid ocularcentrism in this visual enter-

prise, I decided to manage a direct observa-

tion and participation on the field, and then

recorded with ethnographic methods. Some

authors in archaeological ethnography have

pointed out that archaeological knowledge

is not only built with social organization and

hierarchies (eg. Edgeworth 2006), but is

discovered in the practice where natural raw

materials are transformed into cultural infor-

mation (Edgeworth 2003). As I explained

above, I think instead that knowledge emer-

ges in the practice. My interest to include

senses to ethnography then led me to

photo-ethnography (Moreno 2013), and to

the work of Hamilakis and Infantidis (2016)

in Kalaureia (Poros, Greece) which I use as

inspiration for my own photo-ethnography

at Monte Miravete site (Murcia, Spain)

(Marmol 2016, incoming). This kind of

approach combines anthropology, archaeo-

logy and art.

It make contrast with the techno-quantitati-

ve methods popular in current archaeologi-

cal research. Like a secret path in the hege-

mony of the visual, it is a form of auto-eth-

nography where reflexivity is opposed to

traditional distances of the research like the

Other’s context, observations, interviews,

narratives, and so on. It turns its interests to

all subjects and contexts of research. These

elements not depends of the skills of a

photographer or videographer, because they

have value anyhow -it moves between the

academic and the artistic (Moreno 2013).

The mainstream conception is that the

intemporality of photography, the photogra-

phs as immutable mobile artifacts (Van

Dyke 2006) would make them good tools

for support the processes of social analysis

(Moreno 2013). However, photography is

not independent. If we understand them as

cultural artifacts, they are more than a repre-

sentation of reality. We find in them discour-

ses that imposes its own regimes of signifi-

cation, requiring a context of interpretation

to understand its meanings. To going deep

into them is to discover social relationships

of production, consume, power, knowledge,

etc., modern relations that confirms our

distance from the reality seen. In ocularcen-

tric terms, to photograph is a social action

and not only a merely technic achievement

(Moreno 2013). Its truth, to follow a Fou-

cauldian concept, is an effect of power. Once

decoded its contents, the pic can become an

artifact full of symbolic potential (Moreno

2013), almost a thing that could be object of

archaeological analysis, like the pics of

Syrian refugee’s materiality at Lesbos

(Greece) done by the journalist Santi Pala-

cios.

In photo-ethnography, the pic is not only a

passive artifact for illustration of acts but

also allows visualizing concepts and facts

to which understand environments, bodily

dispositions and relational interactions (Mo-

reno 2013). The visual sources used for this

kind of ethnography may be selected from

unintentional records like selfies, scientific

photographies of materials, pics from the

excavation, newspaper or even papers and

meetings. Through photography, it is possi-

ble to capture these details of daily life to be

analyzed, and to incorporate the “native

voice” of the people represented in its inter-

pretation (Moreno 2013:128). Here the

visually of the artifact go further than textual

incomes such descriptions, since provokes

the emergence of free expression, sensibili-

ties produced at the moment of the shoot,

and to “think with eyes and hands” (Ruiz

Zapatero 2014:65. Translation mine). In the

moment of the shoot, the materiality of the

camera, the hands, the eyes, the knowledge

and the intentions of the author, and the

always changing material world to be captu-

red are corresponding to each other, making

possible the moment of photography in the

conjunction of all of them. Independently of

the result, this process implies a great capa-

city of improvisation that makes the photo-

graph an incidental income of the ethnogra-

phic process.

In archaeological photography, we add

another element of signification, the

memory (Ruiz Zapatero 2014:56). Inside

every photograph, there are several tempo-

ralities, making memory a guiding exercise

to be made. However, its intention of 'truth'

hides its potential and free signification, as

happens with the struggle between needless-

ly to be explained art, and scientific obliga-

tory explanation.

It is common to think there is a ‘strategy of

representation’ that constitutes under inten-

tional agendas what is represented (Ruiz

2014; Van Dyke 2006). This heterogeneous

understanding needs an sceptic attitude

which start with doubting about the photo-

graphic veracity itself: considering Karl

Heider’s concept 'Rashômon effect' (Heider

1988) we are aware of the several interpreta-

tions, equally rightful, that archaeologists

have, which are in conflict with the ones of

others. There is not a unique truth even in

the simplest processes like photography.

The photograph have an evocative power

articulating stories and connecting different

memories, sometimes about a moment that

does not already exist (Shanks and Svabo

2013; Ruiz 2014). They connects the unreal

with the real, recreating new experiences

providing new meanings (Webmoor 2005).

Then the world appears as an entity that can

be captured, paused a divided into stable

temporal periods (Bergson 1963). The pic

requires the use of an archaeological imagi-

nation (eg. Shanks 2012), more sensual than

textual. Photographs are itself a mystery that

the viewer has to decode, making emerge

inspirational sensations and close relations

between time and space, bodies and

artifacts.

Under specular terms, the object of study is

approached from the aesthetic, in the limits

of a mainstream analysis, which along

objectification, institutionalization and

legitimation establish such conditions for

the analysis of collective production of

knowledge (Moreno 2013).

What photo-ethnography proposes is to

transcend the artificial limitations of our

subjects of study through sensibilities, with

the addition of other corporal, sensual

elements and kinetics that participate in the

flowing of the reality that has been 'captu-

red'. Symbols, signs, attitudes, gestures, and

footprints, from all these the photo-ethno-

grapher obtain new perspectives about

signification (Moreno 2013). Why just sepa-

rate all this experience in little parts to fit

them into strictly processes of classifica-

tion? The visual essay I propose plays with

irony when identify textual symbols, dots,

over the material world. Instead of start from

pre-stablished texts, texts are being created

through the visual interpretation of inexis-

tent textual symbols.

REVISTA CHAKIÑAN, 2017, Nº.3, DICIEMBRE, (20-40)

ISSN 2550-6722

In the context of the material turn, the

distance between abstract theory and physi-

cal world is more narrow day per day (Gon-

zález-Ruibal 2012). In this interstice, art for

theory has reach our discipline bringing new

ways to understand materiality.

It is clear that the techniques and thoughts of

artists has been used to do science along the

time, as we can see in the work of Leonardo

or in the notion of science as “art of…”, of

the Renaissance. Our categories to organize

reality comes from these times in which

descriptions were made by the use of

drawings (Renfrew 2003).

This is also clear in the first’s ethnographies

done by the Spanish priests in the communi-

ties they contacted with, through methods

based on drawings with the aim to give faith

about what they saw. Now, art historians

analyze many of these depictions. The same

situation happens when we talk about

archaeological drawings if we understand

them just as visual artifacts. Further reflec-

tions arises through Joseph Kosuth's “One

and three Chairs” (1965) where a reflection

about issues of veracity, representation,

textuality and ontology could be made.

A critical attitude towards archaeology ask

for question taken for granted assumptions.

These kind of reflections has been made in

recent years in the works about critical

theory (eg. Fernández 2006), and by alterna-

tive understandings of knowledge, like

senses studies (eg. Hamilakis 2014; Simone-

tti 2013; Ingold 2013), the peripatetic video

(Weebmor 2005; Witmore 2006; also Van

Dyke 2006), or sounds (Witmore 2004), etc.

Other works put their focus on the limita-

tions of methodology, through archaeologi-

cal ethnography (eg. Hamilakis, Pluciennik,

and Tarlow 2001; Hamilakis and Anag-

nostopoulos 2009; Hamilakis, Anagnosto-

poulos and Ifantidis 2009; Edgeworth 2010,

2006, 2003; Castañeda and Matthews 2008;

among others). In line with these alternative

understandings of the practice, we find

themes mixing art and archaeology (eg.

Tilley, Hamilton, and Bender 2000; Shanks

and Pearson 2001; Shanks 2004, 2012;

Valdez-Tullet and Chittock 2016; Cochrane

and Russell 2013; Georghiu and Barth 2018,

incoming; Marmol 2017, among others). As

we saw above, this last theme could be

re-defined far from the prevalence of final

incomes, especially with proposals from

Art-Anthropology (eg. Ingold and Hallam

2007; also Schneider 2017).

In this line, art understood as creative

process allow us to focus on a difference:

while techno-science present a propositional

approach to the world, based on the search

of truth, specular artifacts, and final results,

art provides a non-propositional, practical

and growing knowledge. It does not need to

be explained and depend more on experien-

ce and perception than to schemes of

description.

The relation between art and archaeology in

practice has been common as exemplify “Le

dejeuner sous l’herbe” (1983) by the French

artist Daniel Spoerri and the French

archaeologist Jean-Paul Demoulé, among

other examples, especially from British

artists like Mark Dion with his “Tate

Thames Dig” (1999-2000). In addition, we

can find examples all over the world like the

Art&Archaeology Forum in Kyoto, Japan,

where artists are invited to collaborate with

archaeologists. More archaeo-artistic coin-

cidences could be found in the archaeologi-

cal fieldwork in the Monte Miravete site at

Murcia (Spain), done by a strong Art-Ar-

chaeology approach. My personal experien-

ce involves also our work in the Archaeo-

drome, a fake archaeological site of 5x5

meters square where we do artistic and

archaeological practices (figure 1).

In this place, I identified several processes

about collection, fragmentation and earthing

(opposed to excavation) in the ongoing

process of the creation of the entire site that

involved performance and aesthetics,

memories and improvisation. This was

conceptualized in my artwork “Archaeolo-

gical Contra-Museum” presented at Sighta-

tions exhibition at Southampton, UK (TAG

meeting 2016).

More examples around aesthetics are the

works of the Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei, who

use elements of the Chinese Heritage to

create pieces through destroying real

archaeological artifacts as Neolithic urns

from the Han period (“Han dynasty urn”

(1995), “Han Dynasty urn with Coca-cola

logo” (1994)). Other artists working on field

are Arman with his ‘packed’ rubbish-art;

Simon Fujiwara with his works “Phallusies”

(2010) and “Frozen’s” (2010); Daniel

Guzman and his artwork about the presence

of the archaeological in the daily life throu-

gh his piece “La dificultad de cruzar un

campo de tierra cualquiera” (2012); and also

great painters like Picasso who used prehis-

toric art as inspiration. We could find many

artists like Dragos Georghiu or Richard

Long in Land art, and interesting proposals

in Conceptual art, such Duchamp itself, and

his understanding of art as materialization of

ideas. One of my favorite art style is Street

art because involves the creation of new

sites through changing the meanings of the

public space. The creation of art is an

archaeological evidence itself, because the

artwork always would represent the artist's

agency (according to art anthropologist

Alfred Gell, in Layton 2003:450). I do not

think so -art would be archaeological due to

common creative processes, not because

superimposed abstractions, as agency, to

final incomes to be seen.

About photography and ethnography

To avoid ocularcentrism in this visual enter-

prise, I decided to manage a direct observa-

tion and participation on the field, and then

recorded with ethnographic methods. Some

authors in archaeological ethnography have

pointed out that archaeological knowledge

is not only built with social organization and

hierarchies (eg. Edgeworth 2006), but is

discovered in the practice where natural raw

materials are transformed into cultural infor-

mation (Edgeworth 2003). As I explained

above, I think instead that knowledge emer-

ges in the practice. My interest to include

senses to ethnography then led me to

photo-ethnography (Moreno 2013), and to

the work of Hamilakis and Infantidis (2016)

in Kalaureia (Poros, Greece) which I use as

inspiration for my own photo-ethnography

at Monte Miravete site (Murcia, Spain)

(Marmol 2016, incoming). This kind of

approach combines anthropology, archaeo-

logy and art.

It make contrast with the techno-quantitati-

ve methods popular in current archaeologi-

cal research. Like a secret path in the hege-

mony of the visual, it is a form of auto-eth-

nography where reflexivity is opposed to

traditional distances of the research like the

Other’s context, observations, interviews,

narratives, and so on. It turns its interests to

all subjects and contexts of research. These

elements not depends of the skills of a

photographer or videographer, because they

have value anyhow -it moves between the

academic and the artistic (Moreno 2013).

The mainstream conception is that the

intemporality of photography, the photogra-

phs as immutable mobile artifacts (Van

Dyke 2006) would make them good tools

for support the processes of social analysis

(Moreno 2013). However, photography is

not independent. If we understand them as

cultural artifacts, they are more than a repre-

sentation of reality. We find in them discour-

ses that imposes its own regimes of signifi-

cation, requiring a context of interpretation

to understand its meanings. To going deep

into them is to discover social relationships

of production, consume, power, knowledge,

etc., modern relations that confirms our

distance from the reality seen. In ocularcen-

tric terms, to photograph is a social action

and not only a merely technic achievement

(Moreno 2013). Its truth, to follow a Fou-

cauldian concept, is an effect of power. Once

decoded its contents, the pic can become an

artifact full of symbolic potential (Moreno

2013), almost a thing that could be object of

archaeological analysis, like the pics of

Syrian refugee’s materiality at Lesbos

(Greece) done by the journalist Santi Pala-

cios.

In photo-ethnography, the pic is not only a

passive artifact for illustration of acts but

also allows visualizing concepts and facts

to which understand environments, bodily

dispositions and relational interactions (Mo-

reno 2013). The visual sources used for this

kind of ethnography may be selected from

unintentional records like selfies, scientific

photographies of materials, pics from the

excavation, newspaper or even papers and

meetings. Through photography, it is possi-

ble to capture these details of daily life to be

analyzed, and to incorporate the “native

voice” of the people represented in its inter-

pretation (Moreno 2013:128). Here the

visually of the artifact go further than textual

incomes such descriptions, since provokes

the emergence of free expression, sensibili-

ties produced at the moment of the shoot,

and to “think with eyes and hands” (Ruiz

Zapatero 2014:65. Translation mine). In the

moment of the shoot, the materiality of the

camera, the hands, the eyes, the knowledge

and the intentions of the author, and the

always changing material world to be captu-

red are corresponding to each other, making

possible the moment of photography in the

conjunction of all of them. Independently of

the result, this process implies a great capa-

city of improvisation that makes the photo-

graph an incidental income of the ethnogra-

phic process.

In archaeological photography, we add

another element of signification, the

memory (Ruiz Zapatero 2014:56). Inside

every photograph, there are several tempo-

ralities, making memory a guiding exercise

to be made. However, its intention of 'truth'

hides its potential and free signification, as

happens with the struggle between needless-

ly to be explained art, and scientific obliga-

tory explanation.

It is common to think there is a ‘strategy of

representation’ that constitutes under inten-

tional agendas what is represented (Ruiz

2014; Van Dyke 2006). This heterogeneous

understanding needs an sceptic attitude

which start with doubting about the photo-

graphic veracity itself: considering Karl

Heider’s concept 'Rashômon effect' (Heider

1988) we are aware of the several interpreta-

tions, equally rightful, that archaeologists

have, which are in conflict with the ones of

others. There is not a unique truth even in

the simplest processes like photography.

The photograph have an evocative power

articulating stories and connecting different

memories, sometimes about a moment that

does not already exist (Shanks and Svabo

2013; Ruiz 2014). They connects the unreal

with the real, recreating new experiences

providing new meanings (Webmoor 2005).

Then the world appears as an entity that can

be captured, paused a divided into stable

temporal periods (Bergson 1963). The pic

requires the use of an archaeological imagi-

nation (eg. Shanks 2012), more sensual than

textual. Photographs are itself a mystery that

the viewer has to decode, making emerge

inspirational sensations and close relations

between time and space, bodies and

artifacts.

Under specular terms, the object of study is

approached from the aesthetic, in the limits

of a mainstream analysis, which along

objectification, institutionalization and

legitimation establish such conditions for

the analysis of collective production of

knowledge (Moreno 2013).

What photo-ethnography proposes is to

transcend the artificial limitations of our

subjects of study through sensibilities, with

the addition of other corporal, sensual

elements and kinetics that participate in the

flowing of the reality that has been 'captu-

red'. Symbols, signs, attitudes, gestures, and

footprints, from all these the photo-ethno-

grapher obtain new perspectives about

signification (Moreno 2013). Why just sepa-

rate all this experience in little parts to fit

them into strictly processes of classifica-

tion? The visual essay I propose plays with

irony when identify textual symbols, dots,

over the material world. Instead of start from

pre-stablished texts, texts are being created

through the visual interpretation of inexis-

tent textual symbols.

REVISTA CHAKIÑAN, 2017, Nº.3, DICIEMBRE, (20-40)

ISSN 2550-6722

In the context of the material turn, the

distance between abstract theory and physi-

cal world is more narrow day per day (Gon-

zález-Ruibal 2012). In this interstice, art for

theory has reach our discipline bringing new

ways to understand materiality.

It is clear that the techniques and thoughts of

artists has been used to do science along the

time, as we can see in the work of Leonardo

or in the notion of science as “art of…”, of

the Renaissance. Our categories to organize

reality comes from these times in which

descriptions were made by the use of

drawings (Renfrew 2003).

This is also clear in the first’s ethnographies

done by the Spanish priests in the communi-

ties they contacted with, through methods

based on drawings with the aim to give faith

about what they saw. Now, art historians

analyze many of these depictions. The same

situation happens when we talk about

archaeological drawings if we understand

them just as visual artifacts. Further reflec-

tions arises through Joseph Kosuth's “One

and three Chairs” (1965) where a reflection

about issues of veracity, representation,

textuality and ontology could be made.

A critical attitude towards archaeology ask

for question taken for granted assumptions.

These kind of reflections has been made in

recent years in the works about critical

theory (eg. Fernández 2006), and by alterna-

tive understandings of knowledge, like

senses studies (eg. Hamilakis 2014; Simone-

tti 2013; Ingold 2013), the peripatetic video

(Weebmor 2005; Witmore 2006; also Van

Dyke 2006), or sounds (Witmore 2004), etc.

Other works put their focus on the limita-

tions of methodology, through archaeologi-

cal ethnography (eg. Hamilakis, Pluciennik,

and Tarlow 2001; Hamilakis and Anag-

nostopoulos 2009; Hamilakis, Anagnosto-

poulos and Ifantidis 2009; Edgeworth 2010,

2006, 2003; Castañeda and Matthews 2008;

among others). In line with these alternative

understandings of the practice, we find

themes mixing art and archaeology (eg.

Tilley, Hamilton, and Bender 2000; Shanks

and Pearson 2001; Shanks 2004, 2012;

Valdez-Tullet and Chittock 2016; Cochrane

and Russell 2013; Georghiu and Barth 2018,

incoming; Marmol 2017, among others). As

we saw above, this last theme could be

re-defined far from the prevalence of final

incomes, especially with proposals from

Art-Anthropology (eg. Ingold and Hallam

2007; also Schneider 2017).

In this line, art understood as creative

process allow us to focus on a difference:

while techno-science present a propositional

approach to the world, based on the search

of truth, specular artifacts, and final results,

art provides a non-propositional, practical

and growing knowledge. It does not need to

be explained and depend more on experien-

ce and perception than to schemes of

description.

The relation between art and archaeology in

practice has been common as exemplify “Le

dejeuner sous l’herbe” (1983) by the French

artist Daniel Spoerri and the French

archaeologist Jean-Paul Demoulé, among

other examples, especially from British

artists like Mark Dion with his “Tate

Thames Dig” (1999-2000). In addition, we

can find examples all over the world like the

Art&Archaeology Forum in Kyoto, Japan,

where artists are invited to collaborate with

archaeologists. More archaeo-artistic coin-

cidences could be found in the archaeologi-

cal fieldwork in the Monte Miravete site at

Murcia (Spain), done by a strong Art-Ar-

chaeology approach. My personal experien-

ce involves also our work in the Archaeo-

drome, a fake archaeological site of 5x5

meters square where we do artistic and

archaeological practices (figure 1).

In this place, I identified several processes

about collection, fragmentation and earthing

(opposed to excavation) in the ongoing

process of the creation of the entire site that

involved performance and aesthetics,

memories and improvisation. This was

conceptualized in my artwork “Archaeolo-

gical Contra-Museum” presented at Sighta-

tions exhibition at Southampton, UK (TAG

meeting 2016).

More examples around aesthetics are the

works of the Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei, who

use elements of the Chinese Heritage to

create pieces through destroying real

archaeological artifacts as Neolithic urns

from the Han period (“Han dynasty urn”

(1995), “Han Dynasty urn with Coca-cola

logo” (1994)). Other artists working on field

are Arman with his ‘packed’ rubbish-art;

Simon Fujiwara with his works “Phallusies”

(2010) and “Frozen’s” (2010); Daniel

Guzman and his artwork about the presence

of the archaeological in the daily life throu-

gh his piece “La dificultad de cruzar un

campo de tierra cualquiera” (2012); and also

great painters like Picasso who used prehis-

toric art as inspiration. We could find many

artists like Dragos Georghiu or Richard

Long in Land art, and interesting proposals

in Conceptual art, such Duchamp itself, and

his understanding of art as materialization of

ideas. One of my favorite art style is Street

art because involves the creation of new

sites through changing the meanings of the

public space. The creation of art is an

archaeological evidence itself, because the

artwork always would represent the artist's

agency (according to art anthropologist

Alfred Gell, in Layton 2003:450). I do not

think so -art would be archaeological due to

common creative processes, not because

superimposed abstractions, as agency, to

final incomes to be seen.

About photography and ethnography

To avoid ocularcentrism in this visual enter-

prise, I decided to manage a direct observa-

tion and participation on the field, and then

recorded with ethnographic methods. Some

authors in archaeological ethnography have

pointed out that archaeological knowledge

is not only built with social organization and

hierarchies (eg. Edgeworth 2006), but is

discovered in the practice where natural raw

materials are transformed into cultural infor-

mation (Edgeworth 2003). As I explained

above, I think instead that knowledge emer-

ges in the practice. My interest to include

senses to ethnography then led me to

photo-ethnography (Moreno 2013), and to

the work of Hamilakis and Infantidis (2016)

in Kalaureia (Poros, Greece) which I use as

inspiration for my own photo-ethnography

at Monte Miravete site (Murcia, Spain)

(Marmol 2016, incoming). This kind of

approach combines anthropology, archaeo-

logy and art.

It make contrast with the techno-quantitati-

ve methods popular in current archaeologi-

cal research. Like a secret path in the hege-

mony of the visual, it is a form of auto-eth-

nography where reflexivity is opposed to

traditional distances of the research like the

Other’s context, observations, interviews,

narratives, and so on. It turns its interests to

all subjects and contexts of research. These

elements not depends of the skills of a

photographer or videographer, because they

have value anyhow -it moves between the

academic and the artistic (Moreno 2013).

The mainstream conception is that the

intemporality of photography, the photogra-

phs as immutable mobile artifacts (Van

Dyke 2006) would make them good tools

for support the processes of social analysis

(Moreno 2013). However, photography is

not independent. If we understand them as

cultural artifacts, they are more than a repre-

sentation of reality. We find in them discour-

ses that imposes its own regimes of signifi-

cation, requiring a context of interpretation

to understand its meanings. To going deep

into them is to discover social relationships

of production, consume, power, knowledge,

etc., modern relations that confirms our

distance from the reality seen. In ocularcen-

tric terms, to photograph is a social action

and not only a merely technic achievement

(Moreno 2013). Its truth, to follow a Fou-

cauldian concept, is an effect of power. Once

decoded its contents, the pic can become an

artifact full of symbolic potential (Moreno

2013), almost a thing that could be object of

archaeological analysis, like the pics of

Syrian refugee’s materiality at Lesbos

(Greece) done by the journalist Santi Pala-

cios.

In photo-ethnography, the pic is not only a

passive artifact for illustration of acts but

also allows visualizing concepts and facts

to which understand environments, bodily

dispositions and relational interactions (Mo-

reno 2013). The visual sources used for this

kind of ethnography may be selected from

unintentional records like selfies, scientific

photographies of materials, pics from the

excavation, newspaper or even papers and

meetings. Through photography, it is possi-

ble to capture these details of daily life to be

analyzed, and to incorporate the “native

voice” of the people represented in its inter-

pretation (Moreno 2013:128). Here the

visually of the artifact go further than textual

incomes such descriptions, since provokes

the emergence of free expression, sensibili-

ties produced at the moment of the shoot,

and to “think with eyes and hands” (Ruiz

Zapatero 2014:65. Translation mine). In the

moment of the shoot, the materiality of the

camera, the hands, the eyes, the knowledge

and the intentions of the author, and the

always changing material world to be captu-

red are corresponding to each other, making

possible the moment of photography in the

conjunction of all of them. Independently of

the result, this process implies a great capa-

city of improvisation that makes the photo-

graph an incidental income of the ethnogra-

phic process.

In archaeological photography, we add

another element of signification, the

memory (Ruiz Zapatero 2014:56). Inside

every photograph, there are several tempo-

ralities, making memory a guiding exercise

to be made. However, its intention of 'truth'

hides its potential and free signification, as

happens with the struggle between needless-

ly to be explained art, and scientific obliga-

tory explanation.

It is common to think there is a ‘strategy of

representation’ that constitutes under inten-

tional agendas what is represented (Ruiz

2014; Van Dyke 2006). This heterogeneous

understanding needs an sceptic attitude

which start with doubting about the photo-

graphic veracity itself: considering Karl

Heider’s concept 'Rashômon effect' (Heider

1988) we are aware of the several interpreta-

tions, equally rightful, that archaeologists

have, which are in conflict with the ones of

others. There is not a unique truth even in

the simplest processes like photography.

The photograph have an evocative power

articulating stories and connecting different

memories, sometimes about a moment that

does not already exist (Shanks and Svabo

2013; Ruiz 2014). They connects the unreal

with the real, recreating new experiences

providing new meanings (Webmoor 2005).

Then the world appears as an entity that can

be captured, paused a divided into stable

temporal periods (Bergson 1963). The pic

requires the use of an archaeological imagi-

nation (eg. Shanks 2012), more sensual than

textual. Photographs are itself a mystery that

the viewer has to decode, making emerge

inspirational sensations and close relations

between time and space, bodies and

artifacts.

Under specular terms, the object of study is

approached from the aesthetic, in the limits

of a mainstream analysis, which along

objectification, institutionalization and

legitimation establish such conditions for

the analysis of collective production of

knowledge (Moreno 2013).

What photo-ethnography proposes is to

transcend the artificial limitations of our

subjects of study through sensibilities, with

the addition of other corporal, sensual

elements and kinetics that participate in the

flowing of the reality that has been 'captu-

red'. Symbols, signs, attitudes, gestures, and

footprints, from all these the photo-ethno-

grapher obtain new perspectives about

signification (Moreno 2013). Why just sepa-

rate all this experience in little parts to fit

them into strictly processes of classifica-

What is a dot?

According to the common definition, we

could find in any dictionary a dot is a “small

signal which is perceived due to its (color)

contrast with the surface, commonly repre-

sented as circular” and as “grammatical

signal which indicates the end of a sentence

or a pause in a wider text much more than

any other grammatical sign” (note that in

Spanish, the word ‘punto’ means both ‘dot’

and ‘point’. These definitions have been

taken from the Spanish language Academy

dictionary www.rae.es). This is similar to

the concept we imagine at the time to read

the word ‘dot’. However, what is actually a

point, a dot? If visual element perceived by

contrast with his background, are also dots

all the elements that contrast with a back-

ground? Indeed, to identify something by

contrast is the basis of perception.

In Spanish language, dot and point have the

same meaning. A point could be several

things depends of the discipline. We can use

points for measure; to refer to the minimum

contact with a surface; are also a geometric

form; a concept of limits like in Maths; as

indicator of a point; a grammatical sign; an

indicator of temperature; use it when one

status change to another; as anatomy indica-

tor (cardinal points), etc. In Latin, a point

(punctum) is any hole done by drawing. It

represent something that has ended or what

are going to start. Also something which

DISCUSSION:

THE ONTOLOGY OF THE DOT

serve to rest, a pause, the end and the begin,

anger, quantitative valuation, bodies in the

space.

In all this senses of the use of a point (dot),

we see two main characteristics: 1-it index

or represent the objectification of a real

phenomenon (eg. measurable properties),

and 2-it is the transmutation from one status

to another. These two possible meanings are

fluctuating between passivity and activity,

pause and speed.

In this artwork, I will try to show this objec-

tification and transmutation using the

concept of ‘dot’ applied to several archaeo-

logical contexts. Following this, I have

found the point, the dot as a movement and

as materiality as well. Like an act of ethno-

graphic documentation and as an artistic

indetermination where a point is something

theoretic, imagined, observable, to face it

out.

To distill the world in such a manner to be

able to fit the phenomena into mainstream

categories of classification, it is common the

use of points. This use means to push one

status into another, like reflecting vests

making visible new subjects in the landsca-

pe. The point is the sensitive beginning that

attracts our attention.

Beyond the grammaticalness, we find the

dot as a universal key to understand materia-

lity like stone structures or pottery sherds

emerging during excavation (indeed the

finds are perceived as goals, that is, to

follow a grammatical relation, to consider

them as points too). Therefore, the remains

are points of attention and can be connected

with other kinds of different-nature points,

like if we were surrealists sailing in a sea of

alternative realities. The dot could be passi-

ve but also performative indicator of the

creative acts performed by archaeologists.

Here the dot is not a textual symbol just in

its very meaning; ontologically (if we accept

the ontology of a dot); it is diverse and hete-

rogeneous, in unexpected ways. If the dot

have a very nature, it would be possible

because there are something material on it,

something that should be independent from

us, with a life-story. If not, we are talking of

dot typologies, artificial, textual features

imagined over materials -then observed

features that fit into pre-stablished catego-

ries of analysis.

So, said that long explanation of the theory

that informs my position, let me present the

artwork finally. In this photo-essay, you can

observe the pairs of pics accompanied with a

short explanation of the dot identified in

each case.

• Dot as minimal contact with a surface: this

pair of photographs comes from a moment

during the excavation of the Archaeodrome

simulated site. Here the dot could be identi-

fied due to its role as articulator of interac-

tions between the body, the trench and the

white threads used to delimit the squares to

be excavated -two epistemological worlds

that contact one to each other in the same

fluid world. The white threads, parts cut

from the same thread, are also contacting

one to each other, creating a dot at the cross

point, as dot as minimal contact with a surfa-

ce (figure 2).

• Dot as point: this pair shows the nails used

to keep the threads of the trench. These two

points are markers in the landscape of the

site, and requires a careful attention to not to

move them. Even several forces (hits with a

hammer, stones, and nails pressure) would

be mobilized to make them stable points.

Once the trench has been excavated, these

nails are keep as axis of the internal order of

the practice. Also they marks the boundaries

of the site and represent a physical path in

which significant elements are exported and

imported to inform the next steps of the

excavation. As almost the unique fixed point

in a fluid practice, all depends of its mainte-

nance. After the excavation, the little holes

left by them, in case to being removed, will

be there as much as the earth of the site in

the iron surface of the nail (figure 2).

• Dot as numbers: these couple of pairs

shows the diary of the survey at Monte

Miravete site, in which the team had written

the coordinates of the structures found on

the site. Every sequence of numbers repre-

sent a point inside the space in where there

are an archaeological remain, but also these

sequences are points inside the context of

the paper. Even we represented them as

black points with names and numbers in a

digital map. This record means to incorpora-

te conceptual information both in the practi-

ce of survey and in next visits, articulating

with maps and points further engagements

with the landscape (figure 3).

• Dot as representation: the archaeological

drawing is made by the contact of the pencil

in a paper surface. The dots used to repre-

sent volumes and irregularities of the

archaeological artifacts serves not only to

make a testimony of veracity of what has

been recover, but also allows to conceptuali-

ze the materials for the study of its proper-

ties. However, this study is only logic inside

the rules of the method, otherwise the draw

would be an unreal representation made by

the interaction of the pencil, the ink, the

paper, the hand and the intentions of the

author. If the draw contains enough veracity,

it is because the conceptualization of the

materials recovered: they are like points in

the context of the research that are transfor-

med into a thousand of points in the draw.

This exercise follows a direction of disgre-

gation, the disappearance of materiality into

its technological representation. The ontolo-

gy of the materials is seen analogue to the

artificiality of the dots, clearly separated

from the field but incorporated in further

practices (figure 3).

• Dot as form: summer. We are surveying an

18km² site in which we found this circu-

lar-shape structures, kilns of the 19th

century. These structures seems to be dot-li-

ke, circular points. In addition, there are

other kinds of dots since we can represent

them in maps, using points as have seen

above. We can draw those structures using

points, and even the record sheets shows two

points more: the draft plant and the textual

description. Since structures have made its

own paths in coordination with the rest of

the elements of landscape, those paths we

involuntarily followed in the survey, the

structures are also articulators of some parti-

cular phenomena in which the movements

of the archaeologists are included (figure 4).

• Dot as diacritic symbol: in the architecture

of photograph, relevant elements like mate-

rials found are perceived as points among

the rest of elements seen. These elements are

points of attention, these that makes the

image 'archaeological-like'. In this sense,

tools like the trowel are also points in the

photograph, defining the pic as a meta-re-

presentation of the archaeological practice.

In visual terms, they refer to a world outside

the available information in the image (figu-

re 5).

• Dot as physical change: from the soil, the

finds emerge through the actions of volun-

teers. As a find, this little lamp is a point in

the context of the entire research. However,

this material, composed by a reunion of clay,

paint and maker's hands, also have a history

of life, which is hidden for the volunteers. It

was made by us, prior to its earthing in the

site. Nevertheless, independently of this

fact, to be corroborated has to be presented

through photographs under the terms of the

archaeological documentation. From clay

-materially- to a namely category -medieval

lamp- this remain is conceived at the distan-

ce as a point, contrasting with the ground,

and with several temporalities (figure 5).

• Dot as anatomy: maps represent several

geographical features. Since what are repre-

sented is the relevant elements for the

research, and the research is conducted by

human aspirations guided by materiality, the

map would incorporate a sensual geography

of landscape. Not just geographical informa-

tion, but also paths, remains, special places

to be remembered. The points of the maps

are not only passive representation of visited

places, but also a projection of memories

and possible possibilities for future. This

kind of points could be also iconic represen-

tations showing how the corporal move-

ments in the space (figure 6) are.

• Dot as performance: there are no much

conserved examples of ancient, prehistoric

tattoo. Some of these few examples seems to

be enough information for create a discourse

about the Pazyryk culture (Argent 2013).

The analysis of relationships between repre-

sentations and cultural aesthetic schemes

has been common. The performative act of

tattoo, the incorporation of real beliefs and

aspirations through hand movements into

the skin with inked sticks, reminds the crea-

tion of documents over which we hope to

continue the research. To tattoo implies the

explicit insertion of thousand dots into the

skin (figure 6).

• Dot as grammatical symbol: it is common

to think that archaeological information is

complete when it is published. Then all the

experiences, processes, engagements and

contacts with materials are summarized and

selected, written in few pages. Those pages

are white surfaces in which black ink is

deposited, creating forms that represent

signs. It usually happens with the act of

typing on a computer. As Ingold pointed out,

typing is the example of how modern human

beings are losing their humanity, since we

only use the fingertips in our interaction

with the material world (2013). In the text

itself, we also use signs. Moreover, some of

these takes the form of pics, figures and

quotes, points referring to other realities

among seas of words. Here the dot act for

understand the text, to have an experience of

reading based on little stops and ongoing

reading. Then it is a performative act ruled

by this symbolism, also physically present

with a mount of ink in the form of a dot

(figure 7). The dot is always out there, in

daily experience, making us to stop and

breathe.

• Dot as bodily experience: our bodies are

part of the landscape of the research. On

fieldwork, archaeologists with reflecting

vests are material points in this landscape.

However, for foreigners and for the ethno-

grapher, they are part also of the wider natu-

ral environment. Being points, their engage-

ment with the field happens through artifi-

cial understanding of nature (figure 8).

• Dot as concept: this pic shows the record

sheets to document the archaeological

findings. These sheets are analogue to the

camera, in the sense they works in the same

way instrumentalizing real phenomena. The

conceptualization of the stone structures is

done first with a textual description of its

main characteristics, then with a draft

drawing through which measures, locations,

coordinates, and are recorded. This is the

creation of points from points to make more

points in the maps and publications

(figure 9).

• Dot as geometry: here the dot is evident.

The circular-shape of this fragment of

pottery reminds us that the idea of materiali-

ty recognizable from geometry to be

contemplated is profoundly ocularcentric.

This fragment was a point in the fieldwork,

now is a point in the database since it is one

of the significant pieces of the research

(figure 9).

• Dot as artistic income: archaeological life

brought me to Santander (north Spain) to

attend a meeting. I visited Covalanas Cave,

in where there are a stunning Prehistoric

rock art, representations of deers made by

dots. I tried to reproduce how these could

had be done drawing points, as I did with

tattoo above. The dot as art is just a retros-

pective category to name a creative process

we unknown (figure 10).

. Dot as unit of measure: one of the common

uses for a point is to measure things, to make

accounts. In this sense, archaeology uses

measure tools and points of reference.

Doing so, what we see can be understood.

The points constitutes a basis for the horizon

of possibilities, articulated around aesthetics

of archaeology and the narrative of bring the

Past in the Present.

The stone wall is not neither natural nor

cultural; never left to be material. It is signi-

ficant just in the reign of modern rationality,

while became part of the life story of lands-

cape since ever (figure 10).

REVISTA CHAKIÑAN, 2017, Nº.3, DICIEMBRE, (20-40)

ISSN 2550-6722

What is a dot?

According to the common definition, we

could find in any dictionary a dot is a “small

signal which is perceived due to its (color)

contrast with the surface, commonly repre-

sented as circular” and as “grammatical

signal which indicates the end of a sentence

or a pause in a wider text much more than

any other grammatical sign” (note that in

Spanish, the word ‘punto’ means both ‘dot’

and ‘point’. These definitions have been

taken from the Spanish language Academy

dictionary www.rae.es). This is similar to

the concept we imagine at the time to read

the word ‘dot’. However, what is actually a

point, a dot? If visual element perceived by

contrast with his background, are also dots

all the elements that contrast with a back-

ground? Indeed, to identify something by

contrast is the basis of perception.

In Spanish language, dot and point have the

same meaning. A point could be several

things depends of the discipline. We can use

points for measure; to refer to the minimum

contact with a surface; are also a geometric

form; a concept of limits like in Maths; as

indicator of a point; a grammatical sign; an

indicator of temperature; use it when one

status change to another; as anatomy indica-

tor (cardinal points), etc. In Latin, a point

(punctum) is any hole done by drawing. It

represent something that has ended or what

are going to start. Also something which

serve to rest, a pause, the end and the begin,

anger, quantitative valuation, bodies in the

space.

In all this senses of the use of a point (dot),

we see two main characteristics: 1-it index

or represent the objectification of a real

phenomenon (eg. measurable properties),

and 2-it is the transmutation from one status

to another. These two possible meanings are

fluctuating between passivity and activity,

pause and speed.

In this artwork, I will try to show this objec-

tification and transmutation using the

concept of ‘dot’ applied to several archaeo-

logical contexts. Following this, I have

found the point, the dot as a movement and

as materiality as well. Like an act of ethno-

graphic documentation and as an artistic

indetermination where a point is something

theoretic, imagined, observable, to face it

out.

To distill the world in such a manner to be

able to fit the phenomena into mainstream

categories of classification, it is common the

use of points. This use means to push one

status into another, like reflecting vests

making visible new subjects in the landsca-

pe. The point is the sensitive beginning that

attracts our attention.

Beyond the grammaticalness, we find the

dot as a universal key to understand materia-

lity like stone structures or pottery sherds

emerging during excavation (indeed the

finds are perceived as goals, that is, to

follow a grammatical relation, to consider

them as points too). Therefore, the remains

are points of attention and can be connected

with other kinds of different-nature points,

like if we were surrealists sailing in a sea of

alternative realities. The dot could be passi-

ve but also performative indicator of the

creative acts performed by archaeologists.

Here the dot is not a textual symbol just in

its very meaning; ontologically (if we accept

the ontology of a dot); it is diverse and hete-

rogeneous, in unexpected ways. If the dot

have a very nature, it would be possible

because there are something material on it,

something that should be independent from

us, with a life-story. If not, we are talking of

dot typologies, artificial, textual features

imagined over materials -then observed

features that fit into pre-stablished catego-

ries of analysis.

So, said that long explanation of the theory

that informs my position, let me present the

artwork finally. In this photo-essay, you can

observe the pairs of pics accompanied with a

short explanation of the dot identified in

each case.

• Dot as minimal contact with a surface: this

pair of photographs comes from a moment

during the excavation of the Archaeodrome

simulated site. Here the dot could be identi-

fied due to its role as articulator of interac-

tions between the body, the trench and the

white threads used to delimit the squares to

be excavated -two epistemological worlds

that contact one to each other in the same

fluid world. The white threads, parts cut

from the same thread, are also contacting

one to each other, creating a dot at the cross

point, as dot as minimal contact with a surfa-

ce (figure 2).

• Dot as point: this pair shows the nails used

to keep the threads of the trench. These two

points are markers in the landscape of the

site, and requires a careful attention to not to

move them. Even several forces (hits with a

hammer, stones, and nails pressure) would

be mobilized to make them stable points.

Once the trench has been excavated, these

nails are keep as axis of the internal order of

the practice. Also they marks the boundaries

of the site and represent a physical path in

which significant elements are exported and

imported to inform the next steps of the

excavation. As almost the unique fixed point

in a fluid practice, all depends of its mainte-

nance. After the excavation, the little holes

left by them, in case to being removed, will

be there as much as the earth of the site in

the iron surface of the nail (figure 2).

• Dot as numbers: these couple of pairs

shows the diary of the survey at Monte

Miravete site, in which the team had written

the coordinates of the structures found on

the site. Every sequence of numbers repre-

sent a point inside the space in where there

are an archaeological remain, but also these

sequences are points inside the context of

the paper. Even we represented them as

black points with names and numbers in a

digital map. This record means to incorpora-

te conceptual information both in the practi-

ce of survey and in next visits, articulating

with maps and points further engagements

with the landscape (figure 3).

• Dot as representation: the archaeological

drawing is made by the contact of the pencil

in a paper surface. The dots used to repre-

sent volumes and irregularities of the

archaeological artifacts serves not only to

make a testimony of veracity of what has

been recover, but also allows to conceptuali-

ze the materials for the study of its proper-

ties. However, this study is only logic inside

the rules of the method, otherwise the draw

would be an unreal representation made by

the interaction of the pencil, the ink, the

paper, the hand and the intentions of the

author. If the draw contains enough veracity,

it is because the conceptualization of the

materials recovered: they are like points in

the context of the research that are transfor-

med into a thousand of points in the draw.

This exercise follows a direction of disgre-

gation, the disappearance of materiality into

its technological representation. The ontolo-

gy of the materials is seen analogue to the

artificiality of the dots, clearly separated

from the field but incorporated in further

practices (figure 3).

• Dot as form: summer. We are surveying an

18km² site in which we found this circu-

lar-shape structures, kilns of the 19th

century. These structures seems to be dot-li-

ke, circular points. In addition, there are

other kinds of dots since we can represent

them in maps, using points as have seen

above. We can draw those structures using

points, and even the record sheets shows two

points more: the draft plant and the textual

description. Since structures have made its

own paths in coordination with the rest of

the elements of landscape, those paths we

involuntarily followed in the survey, the

structures are also articulators of some parti-

cular phenomena in which the movements

of the archaeologists are included (figure 4).

• Dot as diacritic symbol: in the architecture

of photograph, relevant elements like mate-

rials found are perceived as points among

the rest of elements seen. These elements are

points of attention, these that makes the

image 'archaeological-like'. In this sense,

tools like the trowel are also points in the

photograph, defining the pic as a meta-re-

presentation of the archaeological practice.

In visual terms, they refer to a world outside

the available information in the image (figu-

re 5).

• Dot as physical change: from the soil, the

finds emerge through the actions of volun-

teers. As a find, this little lamp is a point in

the context of the entire research. However,

this material, composed by a reunion of clay,

paint and maker's hands, also have a history

of life, which is hidden for the volunteers. It

was made by us, prior to its earthing in the

site. Nevertheless, independently of this

fact, to be corroborated has to be presented

through photographs under the terms of the

archaeological documentation. From clay

-materially- to a namely category -medieval

lamp- this remain is conceived at the distan-

ce as a point, contrasting with the ground,

and with several temporalities (figure 5).

• Dot as anatomy: maps represent several

geographical features. Since what are repre-

sented is the relevant elements for the

research, and the research is conducted by

human aspirations guided by materiality, the

map would incorporate a sensual geography

of landscape. Not just geographical informa-

tion, but also paths, remains, special places

to be remembered. The points of the maps

are not only passive representation of visited

places, but also a projection of memories

and possible possibilities for future. This

kind of points could be also iconic represen-

tations showing how the corporal move-

ments in the space (figure 6) are.

• Dot as performance: there are no much

conserved examples of ancient, prehistoric

tattoo. Some of these few examples seems to

be enough information for create a discourse

about the Pazyryk culture (Argent 2013).

The analysis of relationships between repre-

sentations and cultural aesthetic schemes

has been common. The performative act of

tattoo, the incorporation of real beliefs and

aspirations through hand movements into

the skin with inked sticks, reminds the crea-

tion of documents over which we hope to

continue the research. To tattoo implies the

explicit insertion of thousand dots into the

skin (figure 6).

• Dot as grammatical symbol: it is common

to think that archaeological information is

complete when it is published. Then all the

experiences, processes, engagements and

contacts with materials are summarized and

selected, written in few pages. Those pages

are white surfaces in which black ink is

deposited, creating forms that represent

signs. It usually happens with the act of

typing on a computer. As Ingold pointed out,

typing is the example of how modern human

beings are losing their humanity, since we

only use the fingertips in our interaction

with the material world (2013). In the text

itself, we also use signs. Moreover, some of

these takes the form of pics, figures and

quotes, points referring to other realities

among seas of words. Here the dot act for

understand the text, to have an experience of

reading based on little stops and ongoing

reading. Then it is a performative act ruled

by this symbolism, also physically present

with a mount of ink in the form of a dot

(figure 7). The dot is always out there, in

daily experience, making us to stop and

breathe.

• Dot as bodily experience: our bodies are

part of the landscape of the research. On

fieldwork, archaeologists with reflecting

vests are material points in this landscape.

However, for foreigners and for the ethno-

grapher, they are part also of the wider natu-

ral environment. Being points, their engage-

ment with the field happens through artifi-

cial understanding of nature (figure 8).

• Dot as concept: this pic shows the record

sheets to document the archaeological

findings. These sheets are analogue to the

camera, in the sense they works in the same

way instrumentalizing real phenomena. The

conceptualization of the stone structures is

done first with a textual description of its

main characteristics, then with a draft

drawing through which measures, locations,

coordinates, and are recorded. This is the

creation of points from points to make more

points in the maps and publications

(figure 9).

• Dot as geometry: here the dot is evident.

The circular-shape of this fragment of

pottery reminds us that the idea of materiali-

ty recognizable from geometry to be

contemplated is profoundly ocularcentric.

This fragment was a point in the fieldwork,

now is a point in the database since it is one

of the significant pieces of the research

(figure 9).

• Dot as artistic income: archaeological life

brought me to Santander (north Spain) to

attend a meeting. I visited Covalanas Cave,

in where there are a stunning Prehistoric

rock art, representations of deers made by

dots. I tried to reproduce how these could

had be done drawing points, as I did with

tattoo above. The dot as art is just a retros-

pective category to name a creative process

we unknown (figure 10).

. Dot as unit of measure: one of the common

uses for a point is to measure things, to make

accounts. In this sense, archaeology uses

measure tools and points of reference.

Doing so, what we see can be understood.

The points constitutes a basis for the horizon

of possibilities, articulated around aesthetics

of archaeology and the narrative of bring the

Past in the Present.

The stone wall is not neither natural nor

cultural; never left to be material. It is signi-

ficant just in the reign of modern rationality,

while became part of the life story of lands-

cape since ever (figure 10).

REVISTA CHAKIÑAN, 2017, Nº.3, DICIEMBRE, (20-40)

ISSN 2550-6722

What is a dot?

According to the common definition, we

could find in any dictionary a dot is a “small

signal which is perceived due to its (color)

contrast with the surface, commonly repre-

sented as circular” and as “grammatical

signal which indicates the end of a sentence

or a pause in a wider text much more than

any other grammatical sign” (note that in

Spanish, the word ‘punto’ means both ‘dot’

and ‘point’. These definitions have been

taken from the Spanish language Academy

dictionary www.rae.es). This is similar to

the concept we imagine at the time to read

the word ‘dot’. However, what is actually a

point, a dot? If visual element perceived by

contrast with his background, are also dots

all the elements that contrast with a back-

ground? Indeed, to identify something by

contrast is the basis of perception.

In Spanish language, dot and point have the

same meaning. A point could be several

things depends of the discipline. We can use

points for measure; to refer to the minimum

contact with a surface; are also a geometric

form; a concept of limits like in Maths; as

indicator of a point; a grammatical sign; an

indicator of temperature; use it when one

status change to another; as anatomy indica-

tor (cardinal points), etc. In Latin, a point

(punctum) is any hole done by drawing. It

represent something that has ended or what

are going to start. Also something which

serve to rest, a pause, the end and the begin,

anger, quantitative valuation, bodies in the

space.

In all this senses of the use of a point (dot),

we see two main characteristics: 1-it index

or represent the objectification of a real

phenomenon (eg. measurable properties),

and 2-it is the transmutation from one status

to another. These two possible meanings are

fluctuating between passivity and activity,

pause and speed.

In this artwork, I will try to show this objec-

tification and transmutation using the

concept of ‘dot’ applied to several archaeo-

logical contexts. Following this, I have

found the point, the dot as a movement and

as materiality as well. Like an act of ethno-

graphic documentation and as an artistic

indetermination where a point is something

theoretic, imagined, observable, to face it

out.

To distill the world in such a manner to be

able to fit the phenomena into mainstream

categories of classification, it is common the

use of points. This use means to push one

status into another, like reflecting vests

making visible new subjects in the landsca-

pe. The point is the sensitive beginning that

attracts our attention.

Beyond the grammaticalness, we find the

dot as a universal key to understand materia-

lity like stone structures or pottery sherds

emerging during excavation (indeed the

finds are perceived as goals, that is, to

follow a grammatical relation, to consider

them as points too). Therefore, the remains

are points of attention and can be connected

with other kinds of different-nature points,

like if we were surrealists sailing in a sea of

alternative realities. The dot could be passi-

ve but also performative indicator of the

creative acts performed by archaeologists.

Here the dot is not a textual symbol just in

its very meaning; ontologically (if we accept

the ontology of a dot); it is diverse and hete-

rogeneous, in unexpected ways. If the dot

have a very nature, it would be possible

because there are something material on it,

something that should be independent from

us, with a life-story. If not, we are talking of

dot typologies, artificial, textual features

imagined over materials -then observed

features that fit into pre-stablished catego-

ries of analysis.

So, said that long explanation of the theory

that informs my position, let me present the

artwork finally. In this photo-essay, you can

observe the pairs of pics accompanied with a

short explanation of the dot identified in

each case.

• Dot as minimal contact with a surface: this

pair of photographs comes from a moment

during the excavation of the Archaeodrome

simulated site. Here the dot could be identi-

fied due to its role as articulator of interac-

tions between the body, the trench and the

white threads used to delimit the squares to

be excavated -two epistemological worlds

that contact one to each other in the same

fluid world. The white threads, parts cut

from the same thread, are also contacting

one to each other, creating a dot at the cross

point, as dot as minimal contact with a surfa-

ce (figure 2).

• Dot as point: this pair shows the nails used

to keep the threads of the trench. These two

points are markers in the landscape of the

site, and requires a careful attention to not to

move them. Even several forces (hits with a

hammer, stones, and nails pressure) would

be mobilized to make them stable points.

Once the trench has been excavated, these

nails are keep as axis of the internal order of

the practice. Also they marks the boundaries

of the site and represent a physical path in

which significant elements are exported and

imported to inform the next steps of the

excavation. As almost the unique fixed point

in a fluid practice, all depends of its mainte-

nance. After the excavation, the little holes

left by them, in case to being removed, will

be there as much as the earth of the site in

the iron surface of the nail (figure 2).

• Dot as numbers: these couple of pairs

shows the diary of the survey at Monte

Miravete site, in which the team had written

the coordinates of the structures found on

the site. Every sequence of numbers repre-

sent a point inside the space in where there

are an archaeological remain, but also these

sequences are points inside the context of

the paper. Even we represented them as

black points with names and numbers in a

digital map. This record means to incorpora-

te conceptual information both in the practi-

ce of survey and in next visits, articulating

with maps and points further engagements

with the landscape (figure 3).

• Dot as representation: the archaeological

drawing is made by the contact of the pencil

in a paper surface. The dots used to repre-

sent volumes and irregularities of the

archaeological artifacts serves not only to

make a testimony of veracity of what has

been recover, but also allows to conceptuali-

ze the materials for the study of its proper-

ties. However, this study is only logic inside

the rules of the method, otherwise the draw

would be an unreal representation made by

the interaction of the pencil, the ink, the

paper, the hand and the intentions of the

author. If the draw contains enough veracity,

it is because the conceptualization of the

materials recovered: they are like points in

the context of the research that are transfor-

med into a thousand of points in the draw.

This exercise follows a direction of disgre-

gation, the disappearance of materiality into

its technological representation. The ontolo-

gy of the materials is seen analogue to the

artificiality of the dots, clearly separated

from the field but incorporated in further

practices (figure 3).

• Dot as form: summer. We are surveying an

18km² site in which we found this circu-

lar-shape structures, kilns of the 19th

century. These structures seems to be dot-li-

ke, circular points. In addition, there are

other kinds of dots since we can represent

them in maps, using points as have seen

above. We can draw those structures using

points, and even the record sheets shows two

points more: the draft plant and the textual

description. Since structures have made its

own paths in coordination with the rest of

the elements of landscape, those paths we

involuntarily followed in the survey, the

structures are also articulators of some parti-

cular phenomena in which the movements

of the archaeologists are included (figure 4).

• Dot as diacritic symbol: in the architecture

of photograph, relevant elements like mate-

rials found are perceived as points among

the rest of elements seen. These elements are

points of attention, these that makes the

image 'archaeological-like'. In this sense,

tools like the trowel are also points in the

photograph, defining the pic as a meta-re-

presentation of the archaeological practice.

In visual terms, they refer to a world outside

the available information in the image (figu-

re 5).

• Dot as physical change: from the soil, the

finds emerge through the actions of volun-

teers. As a find, this little lamp is a point in

the context of the entire research. However,

this material, composed by a reunion of clay,

paint and maker's hands, also have a history

of life, which is hidden for the volunteers. It

was made by us, prior to its earthing in the

site. Nevertheless, independently of this

fact, to be corroborated has to be presented

through photographs under the terms of the

archaeological documentation. From clay

-materially- to a namely category -medieval

lamp- this remain is conceived at the distan-

ce as a point, contrasting with the ground,

and with several temporalities (figure 5).

• Dot as anatomy: maps represent several

geographical features. Since what are repre-

sented is the relevant elements for the

research, and the research is conducted by

human aspirations guided by materiality, the

map would incorporate a sensual geography

of landscape. Not just geographical informa-

tion, but also paths, remains, special places

to be remembered. The points of the maps

are not only passive representation of visited

places, but also a projection of memories

and possible possibilities for future. This

kind of points could be also iconic represen-

tations showing how the corporal move-

ments in the space (figure 6) are.

• Dot as performance: there are no much

conserved examples of ancient, prehistoric

tattoo. Some of these few examples seems to

be enough information for create a discourse

about the Pazyryk culture (Argent 2013).

The analysis of relationships between repre-

sentations and cultural aesthetic schemes

has been common. The performative act of

tattoo, the incorporation of real beliefs and

aspirations through hand movements into

the skin with inked sticks, reminds the crea-

tion of documents over which we hope to

continue the research. To tattoo implies the

explicit insertion of thousand dots into the

skin (figure 6).

• Dot as grammatical symbol: it is common

to think that archaeological information is

complete when it is published. Then all the

experiences, processes, engagements and

contacts with materials are summarized and

selected, written in few pages. Those pages

are white surfaces in which black ink is

deposited, creating forms that represent

signs. It usually happens with the act of

typing on a computer. As Ingold pointed out,

typing is the example of how modern human

beings are losing their humanity, since we

only use the fingertips in our interaction

with the material world (2013). In the text

itself, we also use signs. Moreover, some of

these takes the form of pics, figures and

quotes, points referring to other realities

among seas of words. Here the dot act for

understand the text, to have an experience of

reading based on little stops and ongoing

reading. Then it is a performative act ruled

by this symbolism, also physically present

with a mount of ink in the form of a dot

(figure 7). The dot is always out there, in

daily experience, making us to stop and

breathe.

• Dot as bodily experience: our bodies are

part of the landscape of the research. On

fieldwork, archaeologists with reflecting

vests are material points in this landscape.

However, for foreigners and for the ethno-

grapher, they are part also of the wider natu-

ral environment. Being points, their engage-

ment with the field happens through artifi-

cial understanding of nature (figure 8).

• Dot as concept: this pic shows the record

sheets to document the archaeological

findings. These sheets are analogue to the

camera, in the sense they works in the same

way instrumentalizing real phenomena. The

conceptualization of the stone structures is

done first with a textual description of its

main characteristics, then with a draft

drawing through which measures, locations,

coordinates, and are recorded. This is the

creation of points from points to make more

points in the maps and publications

(figure 9).

• Dot as geometry: here the dot is evident.

The circular-shape of this fragment of

pottery reminds us that the idea of materiali-

ty recognizable from geometry to be

contemplated is profoundly ocularcentric.

This fragment was a point in the fieldwork,

now is a point in the database since it is one

of the significant pieces of the research

(figure 9).

• Dot as artistic income: archaeological life

brought me to Santander (north Spain) to

attend a meeting. I visited Covalanas Cave,

in where there are a stunning Prehistoric

rock art, representations of deers made by

dots. I tried to reproduce how these could

had be done drawing points, as I did with

tattoo above. The dot as art is just a retros-

pective category to name a creative process

we unknown (figure 10).

. Dot as unit of measure: one of the common

uses for a point is to measure things, to make

accounts. In this sense, archaeology uses

measure tools and points of reference.

Doing so, what we see can be understood.

The points constitutes a basis for the horizon

of possibilities, articulated around aesthetics

of archaeology and the narrative of bring the

Past in the Present.

The stone wall is not neither natural nor

cultural; never left to be material. It is signi-

ficant just in the reign of modern rationality,

while became part of the life story of lands-

cape since ever (figure 10).

REVISTA CHAKIÑAN, 2017, Nº.3, DICIEMBRE, (20-40)

ISSN 2550-6722

What is a dot?

According to the common definition, we

could find in any dictionary a dot is a “small

signal which is perceived due to its (color)

contrast with the surface, commonly repre-

sented as circular” and as “grammatical

signal which indicates the end of a sentence

or a pause in a wider text much more than

any other grammatical sign” (note that in

Spanish, the word ‘punto’ means both ‘dot’

and ‘point’. These definitions have been

taken from the Spanish language Academy

dictionary www.rae.es). This is similar to

the concept we imagine at the time to read

the word ‘dot’. However, what is actually a

point, a dot? If visual element perceived by

contrast with his background, are also dots

all the elements that contrast with a back-

ground? Indeed, to identify something by

contrast is the basis of perception.

In Spanish language, dot and point have the

same meaning. A point could be several

things depends of the discipline. We can use

points for measure; to refer to the minimum

contact with a surface; are also a geometric

form; a concept of limits like in Maths; as

indicator of a point; a grammatical sign; an

indicator of temperature; use it when one

status change to another; as anatomy indica-

tor (cardinal points), etc. In Latin, a point

(punctum) is any hole done by drawing. It

represent something that has ended or what

are going to start. Also something which

serve to rest, a pause, the end and the begin,

anger, quantitative valuation, bodies in the

space.

In all this senses of the use of a point (dot),

we see two main characteristics: 1-it index

or represent the objectification of a real

phenomenon (eg. measurable properties),

and 2-it is the transmutation from one status

to another. These two possible meanings are

fluctuating between passivity and activity,

pause and speed.

In this artwork, I will try to show this objec-

tification and transmutation using the

concept of ‘dot’ applied to several archaeo-

logical contexts. Following this, I have

found the point, the dot as a movement and

as materiality as well. Like an act of ethno-

graphic documentation and as an artistic

indetermination where a point is something

theoretic, imagined, observable, to face it

out.

To distill the world in such a manner to be

able to fit the phenomena into mainstream

categories of classification, it is common the

use of points. This use means to push one

status into another, like reflecting vests

making visible new subjects in the landsca-

pe. The point is the sensitive beginning that

attracts our attention.

Beyond the grammaticalness, we find the

dot as a universal key to understand materia-

lity like stone structures or pottery sherds

emerging during excavation (indeed the

finds are perceived as goals, that is, to

follow a grammatical relation, to consider

them as points too). Therefore, the remains

are points of attention and can be connected

with other kinds of different-nature points,

like if we were surrealists sailing in a sea of

alternative realities. The dot could be passi-

ve but also performative indicator of the

creative acts performed by archaeologists.

Here the dot is not a textual symbol just in

its very meaning; ontologically (if we accept

the ontology of a dot); it is diverse and hete-

rogeneous, in unexpected ways. If the dot

have a very nature, it would be possible

because there are something material on it,

something that should be independent from

us, with a life-story. If not, we are talking of

dot typologies, artificial, textual features

imagined over materials -then observed

features that fit into pre-stablished catego-

ries of analysis.

So, said that long explanation of the theory

that informs my position, let me present the

artwork finally. In this photo-essay, you can

observe the pairs of pics accompanied with a

short explanation of the dot identified in

each case.

• Dot as minimal contact with a surface: this

pair of photographs comes from a moment

during the excavation of the Archaeodrome

simulated site. Here the dot could be identi-

fied due to its role as articulator of interac-

tions between the body, the trench and the

white threads used to delimit the squares to

be excavated -two epistemological worlds

that contact one to each other in the same

fluid world. The white threads, parts cut

from the same thread, are also contacting

one to each other, creating a dot at the cross

point, as dot as minimal contact with a surfa-

ce (figure 2).

• Dot as point: this pair shows the nails used

to keep the threads of the trench. These two

points are markers in the landscape of the

site, and requires a careful attention to not to

move them. Even several forces (hits with a

hammer, stones, and nails pressure) would

be mobilized to make them stable points.

Once the trench has been excavated, these

nails are keep as axis of the internal order of

the practice. Also they marks the boundaries

of the site and represent a physical path in

which significant elements are exported and

imported to inform the next steps of the

excavation. As almost the unique fixed point

in a fluid practice, all depends of its mainte-

nance. After the excavation, the little holes

left by them, in case to being removed, will

be there as much as the earth of the site in

the iron surface of the nail (figure 2).

• Dot as numbers: these couple of pairs

shows the diary of the survey at Monte

Miravete site, in which the team had written

the coordinates of the structures found on

the site. Every sequence of numbers repre-

sent a point inside the space in where there

are an archaeological remain, but also these

sequences are points inside the context of

the paper. Even we represented them as

black points with names and numbers in a

digital map. This record means to incorpora-

te conceptual information both in the practi-

ce of survey and in next visits, articulating

with maps and points further engagements

with the landscape (figure 3).

• Dot as representation: the archaeological

drawing is made by the contact of the pencil

in a paper surface. The dots used to repre-

sent volumes and irregularities of the

archaeological artifacts serves not only to

make a testimony of veracity of what has

been recover, but also allows to conceptuali-

ze the materials for the study of its proper-

ties. However, this study is only logic inside

the rules of the method, otherwise the draw

would be an unreal representation made by

the interaction of the pencil, the ink, the

paper, the hand and the intentions of the

author. If the draw contains enough veracity,

it is because the conceptualization of the

materials recovered: they are like points in

the context of the research that are transfor-

med into a thousand of points in the draw.

This exercise follows a direction of disgre-

gation, the disappearance of materiality into

its technological representation. The ontolo-

gy of the materials is seen analogue to the

artificiality of the dots, clearly separated

from the field but incorporated in further

practices (figure 3).

• Dot as form: summer. We are surveying an

18km² site in which we found this circu-

lar-shape structures, kilns of the 19th

century. These structures seems to be dot-li-

ke, circular points. In addition, there are

other kinds of dots since we can represent

them in maps, using points as have seen

above. We can draw those structures using

points, and even the record sheets shows two

points more: the draft plant and the textual

description. Since structures have made its

own paths in coordination with the rest of

the elements of landscape, those paths we

involuntarily followed in the survey, the

structures are also articulators of some parti-

cular phenomena in which the movements

of the archaeologists are included (figure 4).

• Dot as diacritic symbol: in the architecture

of photograph, relevant elements like mate-

rials found are perceived as points among

the rest of elements seen. These elements are

points of attention, these that makes the

image 'archaeological-like'. In this sense,

tools like the trowel are also points in the

photograph, defining the pic as a meta-re-

presentation of the archaeological practice.

In visual terms, they refer to a world outside

the available information in the image (figu-

re 5).

• Dot as physical change: from the soil, the

finds emerge through the actions of volun-

teers. As a find, this little lamp is a point in

the context of the entire research. However,

this material, composed by a reunion of clay,

paint and maker's hands, also have a history

of life, which is hidden for the volunteers. It

was made by us, prior to its earthing in the

site. Nevertheless, independently of this

fact, to be corroborated has to be presented

through photographs under the terms of the

archaeological documentation. From clay

-materially- to a namely category -medieval

lamp- this remain is conceived at the distan-

ce as a point, contrasting with the ground,

and with several temporalities (figure 5).

• Dot as anatomy: maps represent several

geographical features. Since what are repre-

sented is the relevant elements for the

research, and the research is conducted by

human aspirations guided by materiality, the

map would incorporate a sensual geography

of landscape. Not just geographical informa-

tion, but also paths, remains, special places

to be remembered. The points of the maps

are not only passive representation of visited

places, but also a projection of memories

and possible possibilities for future. This

kind of points could be also iconic represen-

tations showing how the corporal move-

ments in the space (figure 6) are.

• Dot as performance: there are no much

conserved examples of ancient, prehistoric

tattoo. Some of these few examples seems to

be enough information for create a discourse

about the Pazyryk culture (Argent 2013).

The analysis of relationships between repre-

sentations and cultural aesthetic schemes

has been common. The performative act of

tattoo, the incorporation of real beliefs and

aspirations through hand movements into

the skin with inked sticks, reminds the crea-

tion of documents over which we hope to

continue the research. To tattoo implies the

explicit insertion of thousand dots into the

skin (figure 6).

• Dot as grammatical symbol: it is common

to think that archaeological information is

complete when it is published. Then all the

experiences, processes, engagements and

contacts with materials are summarized and

selected, written in few pages. Those pages

are white surfaces in which black ink is

deposited, creating forms that represent

signs. It usually happens with the act of

typing on a computer. As Ingold pointed out,

typing is the example of how modern human

beings are losing their humanity, since we

only use the fingertips in our interaction

with the material world (2013). In the text

itself, we also use signs. Moreover, some of

these takes the form of pics, figures and

quotes, points referring to other realities

among seas of words. Here the dot act for

understand the text, to have an experience of

reading based on little stops and ongoing

reading. Then it is a performative act ruled

by this symbolism, also physically present

with a mount of ink in the form of a dot

(figure 7). The dot is always out there, in

daily experience, making us to stop and

breathe.

• Dot as bodily experience: our bodies are

part of the landscape of the research. On

fieldwork, archaeologists with reflecting

vests are material points in this landscape.

However, for foreigners and for the ethno-

grapher, they are part also of the wider natu-

ral environment. Being points, their engage-

ment with the field happens through artifi-

cial understanding of nature (figure 8).

• Dot as concept: this pic shows the record

sheets to document the archaeological

findings. These sheets are analogue to the

camera, in the sense they works in the same

way instrumentalizing real phenomena. The

conceptualization of the stone structures is

done first with a textual description of its

main characteristics, then with a draft

drawing through which measures, locations,

coordinates, and are recorded. This is the

creation of points from points to make more

points in the maps and publications

(figure 9).

• Dot as geometry: here the dot is evident.

The circular-shape of this fragment of

pottery reminds us that the idea of materiali-

ty recognizable from geometry to be

contemplated is profoundly ocularcentric.

This fragment was a point in the fieldwork,

now is a point in the database since it is one

of the significant pieces of the research

(figure 9).

• Dot as artistic income: archaeological life

brought me to Santander (north Spain) to

attend a meeting. I visited Covalanas Cave,

in where there are a stunning Prehistoric

rock art, representations of deers made by

dots. I tried to reproduce how these could

had be done drawing points, as I did with

tattoo above. The dot as art is just a retros-

pective category to name a creative process

we unknown (figure 10).

. Dot as unit of measure: one of the common

uses for a point is to measure things, to make

accounts. In this sense, archaeology uses

measure tools and points of reference.

Doing so, what we see can be understood.

The points constitutes a basis for the horizon

of possibilities, articulated around aesthetics

of archaeology and the narrative of bring the

Past in the Present.

The stone wall is not neither natural nor

cultural; never left to be material. It is signi-

ficant just in the reign of modern rationality,

while became part of the life story of lands-

cape since ever (figure 10).

REVISTA CHAKIÑAN, 2017, Nº.3, DICIEMBRE, (20-40)

ISSN 2550-6722

What is a dot?

According to the common definition, we

could find in any dictionary a dot is a “small

signal which is perceived due to its (color)

contrast with the surface, commonly repre-

sented as circular” and as “grammatical

signal which indicates the end of a sentence

or a pause in a wider text much more than

any other grammatical sign” (note that in

Spanish, the word ‘punto’ means both ‘dot’

and ‘point’. These definitions have been

taken from the Spanish language Academy

dictionary www.rae.es). This is similar to

the concept we imagine at the time to read

the word ‘dot’. However, what is actually a

point, a dot? If visual element perceived by

contrast with his background, are also dots

all the elements that contrast with a back-

ground? Indeed, to identify something by

contrast is the basis of perception.

In Spanish language, dot and point have the

same meaning. A point could be several

things depends of the discipline. We can use

points for measure; to refer to the minimum

contact with a surface; are also a geometric

form; a concept of limits like in Maths; as

indicator of a point; a grammatical sign; an

indicator of temperature; use it when one

status change to another; as anatomy indica-

tor (cardinal points), etc. In Latin, a point

(punctum) is any hole done by drawing. It

represent something that has ended or what

are going to start. Also something which

serve to rest, a pause, the end and the begin,

anger, quantitative valuation, bodies in the

space.

In all this senses of the use of a point (dot),

we see two main characteristics: 1-it index

or represent the objectification of a real

phenomenon (eg. measurable properties),

and 2-it is the transmutation from one status

to another. These two possible meanings are

fluctuating between passivity and activity,

pause and speed.

In this artwork, I will try to show this objec-

tification and transmutation using the

concept of ‘dot’ applied to several archaeo-

logical contexts. Following this, I have

found the point, the dot as a movement and

as materiality as well. Like an act of ethno-

graphic documentation and as an artistic

indetermination where a point is something

theoretic, imagined, observable, to face it

out.

To distill the world in such a manner to be

able to fit the phenomena into mainstream

categories of classification, it is common the

use of points. This use means to push one

status into another, like reflecting vests

making visible new subjects in the landsca-

pe. The point is the sensitive beginning that

attracts our attention.

Beyond the grammaticalness, we find the

dot as a universal key to understand materia-

lity like stone structures or pottery sherds

emerging during excavation (indeed the

finds are perceived as goals, that is, to

follow a grammatical relation, to consider

them as points too). Therefore, the remains

are points of attention and can be connected

with other kinds of different-nature points,

like if we were surrealists sailing in a sea of

alternative realities. The dot could be passi-

ve but also performative indicator of the

creative acts performed by archaeologists.

Here the dot is not a textual symbol just in

its very meaning; ontologically (if we accept

the ontology of a dot); it is diverse and hete-

rogeneous, in unexpected ways. If the dot

have a very nature, it would be possible

because there are something material on it,

something that should be independent from

us, with a life-story. If not, we are talking of

dot typologies, artificial, textual features

imagined over materials -then observed

features that fit into pre-stablished catego-

ries of analysis.

So, said that long explanation of the theory

that informs my position, let me present the

artwork finally. In this photo-essay, you can

observe the pairs of pics accompanied with a

short explanation of the dot identified in

each case.

• Dot as minimal contact with a surface: this

pair of photographs comes from a moment

during the excavation of the Archaeodrome

simulated site. Here the dot could be identi-

fied due to its role as articulator of interac-

tions between the body, the trench and the

white threads used to delimit the squares to

be excavated -two epistemological worlds

that contact one to each other in the same

fluid world. The white threads, parts cut

from the same thread, are also contacting

one to each other, creating a dot at the cross

point, as dot as minimal contact with a surfa-

ce (figure 2).

• Dot as point: this pair shows the nails used

to keep the threads of the trench. These two

points are markers in the landscape of the

site, and requires a careful attention to not to

move them. Even several forces (hits with a

hammer, stones, and nails pressure) would

be mobilized to make them stable points.

Once the trench has been excavated, these

nails are keep as axis of the internal order of

the practice. Also they marks the boundaries

of the site and represent a physical path in

which significant elements are exported and

imported to inform the next steps of the

excavation. As almost the unique fixed point

in a fluid practice, all depends of its mainte-

nance. After the excavation, the little holes

left by them, in case to being removed, will

be there as much as the earth of the site in

the iron surface of the nail (figure 2).

• Dot as numbers: these couple of pairs

shows the diary of the survey at Monte

Miravete site, in which the team had written

the coordinates of the structures found on

the site. Every sequence of numbers repre-

sent a point inside the space in where there

are an archaeological remain, but also these

sequences are points inside the context of

the paper. Even we represented them as

black points with names and numbers in a

digital map. This record means to incorpora-

te conceptual information both in the practi-

ce of survey and in next visits, articulating

with maps and points further engagements

with the landscape (figure 3).

• Dot as representation: the archaeological

drawing is made by the contact of the pencil

in a paper surface. The dots used to repre-

sent volumes and irregularities of the

archaeological artifacts serves not only to

make a testimony of veracity of what has

been recover, but also allows to conceptuali-

ze the materials for the study of its proper-

ties. However, this study is only logic inside

the rules of the method, otherwise the draw

would be an unreal representation made by

the interaction of the pencil, the ink, the

paper, the hand and the intentions of the

author. If the draw contains enough veracity,

it is because the conceptualization of the

materials recovered: they are like points in

the context of the research that are transfor-

med into a thousand of points in the draw.

This exercise follows a direction of disgre-

gation, the disappearance of materiality into

its technological representation. The ontolo-

gy of the materials is seen analogue to the

artificiality of the dots, clearly separated

from the field but incorporated in further

practices (figure 3).

• Dot as form: summer. We are surveying an

18km² site in which we found this circu-

lar-shape structures, kilns of the 19th

century. These structures seems to be dot-li-

ke, circular points. In addition, there are

other kinds of dots since we can represent

them in maps, using points as have seen

above. We can draw those structures using

points, and even the record sheets shows two

points more: the draft plant and the textual

description. Since structures have made its

own paths in coordination with the rest of

the elements of landscape, those paths we

involuntarily followed in the survey, the

structures are also articulators of some parti-

cular phenomena in which the movements

of the archaeologists are included (figure 4).

• Dot as diacritic symbol: in the architecture

of photograph, relevant elements like mate-

rials found are perceived as points among

the rest of elements seen. These elements are

points of attention, these that makes the

image 'archaeological-like'. In this sense,

tools like the trowel are also points in the

photograph, defining the pic as a meta-re-

presentation of the archaeological practice.

In visual terms, they refer to a world outside

the available information in the image (figu-

re 5).

• Dot as physical change: from the soil, the

finds emerge through the actions of volun-

teers. As a find, this little lamp is a point in

the context of the entire research. However,

this material, composed by a reunion of clay,

paint and maker's hands, also have a history

of life, which is hidden for the volunteers. It

was made by us, prior to its earthing in the

site. Nevertheless, independently of this

fact, to be corroborated has to be presented

through photographs under the terms of the

archaeological documentation. From clay

-materially- to a namely category -medieval

lamp- this remain is conceived at the distan-

ce as a point, contrasting with the ground,

and with several temporalities (figure 5).

• Dot as anatomy: maps represent several

geographical features. Since what are repre-

sented is the relevant elements for the

research, and the research is conducted by

human aspirations guided by materiality, the

map would incorporate a sensual geography

of landscape. Not just geographical informa-

tion, but also paths, remains, special places

to be remembered. The points of the maps

are not only passive representation of visited

places, but also a projection of memories

and possible possibilities for future. This

kind of points could be also iconic represen-

tations showing how the corporal move-

ments in the space (figure 6) are.

• Dot as performance: there are no much

conserved examples of ancient, prehistoric

tattoo. Some of these few examples seems to

be enough information for create a discourse

about the Pazyryk culture (Argent 2013).

The analysis of relationships between repre-

sentations and cultural aesthetic schemes

has been common. The performative act of

tattoo, the incorporation of real beliefs and

aspirations through hand movements into

the skin with inked sticks, reminds the crea-

tion of documents over which we hope to

continue the research. To tattoo implies the

explicit insertion of thousand dots into the

skin (figure 6).

• Dot as grammatical symbol: it is common

to think that archaeological information is

complete when it is published. Then all the

experiences, processes, engagements and

contacts with materials are summarized and

selected, written in few pages. Those pages

are white surfaces in which black ink is

deposited, creating forms that represent

signs. It usually happens with the act of

typing on a computer. As Ingold pointed out,

typing is the example of how modern human

beings are losing their humanity, since we

only use the fingertips in our interaction

with the material world (2013). In the text

itself, we also use signs. Moreover, some of

these takes the form of pics, figures and

quotes, points referring to other realities

among seas of words. Here the dot act for

understand the text, to have an experience of

reading based on little stops and ongoing

reading. Then it is a performative act ruled

by this symbolism, also physically present

with a mount of ink in the form of a dot

(figure 7). The dot is always out there, in

daily experience, making us to stop and

breathe.

• Dot as bodily experience: our bodies are

part of the landscape of the research. On

fieldwork, archaeologists with reflecting

vests are material points in this landscape.

However, for foreigners and for the ethno-

grapher, they are part also of the wider natu-

ral environment. Being points, their engage-

ment with the field happens through artifi-

cial understanding of nature (figure 8).

• Dot as concept: this pic shows the record

sheets to document the archaeological

findings. These sheets are analogue to the

camera, in the sense they works in the same

way instrumentalizing real phenomena. The

conceptualization of the stone structures is

done first with a textual description of its

main characteristics, then with a draft

drawing through which measures, locations,

coordinates, and are recorded. This is the

creation of points from points to make more

points in the maps and publications

(figure 9).

• Dot as geometry: here the dot is evident.

The circular-shape of this fragment of

pottery reminds us that the idea of materiali-

ty recognizable from geometry to be

contemplated is profoundly ocularcentric.

This fragment was a point in the fieldwork,

now is a point in the database since it is one

of the significant pieces of the research

(figure 9).

• Dot as artistic income: archaeological life

brought me to Santander (north Spain) to

attend a meeting. I visited Covalanas Cave,

in where there are a stunning Prehistoric

rock art, representations of deers made by

dots. I tried to reproduce how these could

had be done drawing points, as I did with

tattoo above. The dot as art is just a retros-

pective category to name a creative process

we unknown (figure 10).

. Dot as unit of measure: one of the common

uses for a point is to measure things, to make

accounts. In this sense, archaeology uses

measure tools and points of reference.

Doing so, what we see can be understood.

The points constitutes a basis for the horizon

of possibilities, articulated around aesthetics

of archaeology and the narrative of bring the

Past in the Present.

The stone wall is not neither natural nor

cultural; never left to be material. It is signi-

ficant just in the reign of modern rationality,

while became part of the life story of lands-

cape since ever (figure 10).

REVISTA CHAKIÑAN, 2017, Nº.3, DICIEMBRE, (20-40)

ISSN 2550-6722

What is a dot?

According to the common definition, we

could find in any dictionary a dot is a “small

signal which is perceived due to its (color)

contrast with the surface, commonly repre-

sented as circular” and as “grammatical

signal which indicates the end of a sentence

or a pause in a wider text much more than

any other grammatical sign” (note that in

Spanish, the word ‘punto’ means both ‘dot’

and ‘point’. These definitions have been

taken from the Spanish language Academy

dictionary www.rae.es). This is similar to

the concept we imagine at the time to read

the word ‘dot’. However, what is actually a

point, a dot? If visual element perceived by

contrast with his background, are also dots

all the elements that contrast with a back-

ground? Indeed, to identify something by

contrast is the basis of perception.

In Spanish language, dot and point have the

same meaning. A point could be several

things depends of the discipline. We can use

points for measure; to refer to the minimum

contact with a surface; are also a geometric

form; a concept of limits like in Maths; as

indicator of a point; a grammatical sign; an

indicator of temperature; use it when one

status change to another; as anatomy indica-

tor (cardinal points), etc. In Latin, a point

(punctum) is any hole done by drawing. It

represent something that has ended or what

are going to start. Also something which

serve to rest, a pause, the end and the begin,

anger, quantitative valuation, bodies in the

space.

In all this senses of the use of a point (dot),

we see two main characteristics: 1-it index

or represent the objectification of a real

phenomenon (eg. measurable properties),

and 2-it is the transmutation from one status

to another. These two possible meanings are

fluctuating between passivity and activity,

pause and speed.

In this artwork, I will try to show this objec-

tification and transmutation using the

concept of ‘dot’ applied to several archaeo-

logical contexts. Following this, I have

found the point, the dot as a movement and

as materiality as well. Like an act of ethno-

graphic documentation and as an artistic

indetermination where a point is something

theoretic, imagined, observable, to face it

out.

To distill the world in such a manner to be

able to fit the phenomena into mainstream

categories of classification, it is common the

use of points. This use means to push one

status into another, like reflecting vests

making visible new subjects in the landsca-

pe. The point is the sensitive beginning that

attracts our attention.

Beyond the grammaticalness, we find the

dot as a universal key to understand materia-

lity like stone structures or pottery sherds

emerging during excavation (indeed the

finds are perceived as goals, that is, to

follow a grammatical relation, to consider

them as points too). Therefore, the remains

are points of attention and can be connected

with other kinds of different-nature points,

like if we were surrealists sailing in a sea of

alternative realities. The dot could be passi-

ve but also performative indicator of the

creative acts performed by archaeologists.

Here the dot is not a textual symbol just in

its very meaning; ontologically (if we accept

the ontology of a dot); it is diverse and hete-

rogeneous, in unexpected ways. If the dot

have a very nature, it would be possible

because there are something material on it,

something that should be independent from

us, with a life-story. If not, we are talking of

dot typologies, artificial, textual features

imagined over materials -then observed

features that fit into pre-stablished catego-

ries of analysis.

So, said that long explanation of the theory

that informs my position, let me present the

artwork finally. In this photo-essay, you can

observe the pairs of pics accompanied with a

short explanation of the dot identified in

each case.

• Dot as minimal contact with a surface: this

pair of photographs comes from a moment

during the excavation of the Archaeodrome

simulated site. Here the dot could be identi-

fied due to its role as articulator of interac-

tions between the body, the trench and the

white threads used to delimit the squares to

be excavated -two epistemological worlds

that contact one to each other in the same

fluid world. The white threads, parts cut

from the same thread, are also contacting

one to each other, creating a dot at the cross

point, as dot as minimal contact with a surfa-

ce (figure 2).

• Dot as point: this pair shows the nails used

to keep the threads of the trench. These two

points are markers in the landscape of the

site, and requires a careful attention to not to

move them. Even several forces (hits with a

hammer, stones, and nails pressure) would

be mobilized to make them stable points.

Once the trench has been excavated, these

nails are keep as axis of the internal order of

the practice. Also they marks the boundaries

of the site and represent a physical path in

which significant elements are exported and

imported to inform the next steps of the

excavation. As almost the unique fixed point

in a fluid practice, all depends of its mainte-

nance. After the excavation, the little holes

left by them, in case to being removed, will

be there as much as the earth of the site in

the iron surface of the nail (figure 2).

• Dot as numbers: these couple of pairs

shows the diary of the survey at Monte

Miravete site, in which the team had written

the coordinates of the structures found on

the site. Every sequence of numbers repre-

sent a point inside the space in where there

are an archaeological remain, but also these

sequences are points inside the context of

the paper. Even we represented them as

black points with names and numbers in a

digital map. This record means to incorpora-

te conceptual information both in the practi-

ce of survey and in next visits, articulating

with maps and points further engagements

with the landscape (figure 3).

• Dot as representation: the archaeological

drawing is made by the contact of the pencil

in a paper surface. The dots used to repre-

sent volumes and irregularities of the

archaeological artifacts serves not only to

make a testimony of veracity of what has

been recover, but also allows to conceptuali-

ze the materials for the study of its proper-

ties. However, this study is only logic inside

the rules of the method, otherwise the draw

would be an unreal representation made by

the interaction of the pencil, the ink, the

paper, the hand and the intentions of the

author. If the draw contains enough veracity,

it is because the conceptualization of the

materials recovered: they are like points in

the context of the research that are transfor-

med into a thousand of points in the draw.

This exercise follows a direction of disgre-

gation, the disappearance of materiality into

its technological representation. The ontolo-

gy of the materials is seen analogue to the

artificiality of the dots, clearly separated

from the field but incorporated in further

practices (figure 3).

• Dot as form: summer. We are surveying an

18km² site in which we found this circu-

lar-shape structures, kilns of the 19th

century. These structures seems to be dot-li-

ke, circular points. In addition, there are

other kinds of dots since we can represent

them in maps, using points as have seen

above. We can draw those structures using

points, and even the record sheets shows two

points more: the draft plant and the textual

description. Since structures have made its

own paths in coordination with the rest of

the elements of landscape, those paths we

involuntarily followed in the survey, the

structures are also articulators of some parti-

cular phenomena in which the movements

of the archaeologists are included (figure 4).

• Dot as diacritic symbol: in the architecture

of photograph, relevant elements like mate-

rials found are perceived as points among

the rest of elements seen. These elements are

points of attention, these that makes the

image 'archaeological-like'. In this sense,

tools like the trowel are also points in the

photograph, defining the pic as a meta-re-

presentation of the archaeological practice.

In visual terms, they refer to a world outside

the available information in the image (figu-

re 5).

• Dot as physical change: from the soil, the

finds emerge through the actions of volun-

teers. As a find, this little lamp is a point in

the context of the entire research. However,

this material, composed by a reunion of clay,

paint and maker's hands, also have a history

of life, which is hidden for the volunteers. It

was made by us, prior to its earthing in the

site. Nevertheless, independently of this

fact, to be corroborated has to be presented

through photographs under the terms of the

archaeological documentation. From clay

-materially- to a namely category -medieval

lamp- this remain is conceived at the distan-

ce as a point, contrasting with the ground,

and with several temporalities (figure 5).

• Dot as anatomy: maps represent several

geographical features. Since what are repre-

sented is the relevant elements for the

research, and the research is conducted by

human aspirations guided by materiality, the

map would incorporate a sensual geography

of landscape. Not just geographical informa-

tion, but also paths, remains, special places

to be remembered. The points of the maps

are not only passive representation of visited

places, but also a projection of memories

and possible possibilities for future. This

kind of points could be also iconic represen-

tations showing how the corporal move-

ments in the space (figure 6) are.

• Dot as performance: there are no much

conserved examples of ancient, prehistoric

tattoo. Some of these few examples seems to

be enough information for create a discourse

about the Pazyryk culture (Argent 2013).

The analysis of relationships between repre-

sentations and cultural aesthetic schemes

has been common. The performative act of

tattoo, the incorporation of real beliefs and

aspirations through hand movements into

the skin with inked sticks, reminds the crea-

tion of documents over which we hope to

continue the research. To tattoo implies the

explicit insertion of thousand dots into the

skin (figure 6).

• Dot as grammatical symbol: it is common

to think that archaeological information is

complete when it is published. Then all the

experiences, processes, engagements and

contacts with materials are summarized and

selected, written in few pages. Those pages

are white surfaces in which black ink is

deposited, creating forms that represent

signs. It usually happens with the act of

typing on a computer. As Ingold pointed out,

typing is the example of how modern human

beings are losing their humanity, since we

only use the fingertips in our interaction

with the material world (2013). In the text

itself, we also use signs. Moreover, some of

these takes the form of pics, figures and

quotes, points referring to other realities

among seas of words. Here the dot act for

understand the text, to have an experience of

reading based on little stops and ongoing

reading. Then it is a performative act ruled

by this symbolism, also physically present

with a mount of ink in the form of a dot

(figure 7). The dot is always out there, in

daily experience, making us to stop and

breathe.

• Dot as bodily experience: our bodies are

part of the landscape of the research. On

fieldwork, archaeologists with reflecting

vests are material points in this landscape.

However, for foreigners and for the ethno-

grapher, they are part also of the wider natu-

ral environment. Being points, their engage-

ment with the field happens through artifi-

cial understanding of nature (figure 8).

• Dot as concept: this pic shows the record

sheets to document the archaeological

findings. These sheets are analogue to the

camera, in the sense they works in the same

way instrumentalizing real phenomena. The

conceptualization of the stone structures is

done first with a textual description of its

main characteristics, then with a draft

drawing through which measures, locations,

coordinates, and are recorded. This is the

creation of points from points to make more

points in the maps and publications

(figure 9).

• Dot as geometry: here the dot is evident.

The circular-shape of this fragment of

pottery reminds us that the idea of materiali-

ty recognizable from geometry to be

contemplated is profoundly ocularcentric.

This fragment was a point in the fieldwork,

now is a point in the database since it is one

of the significant pieces of the research

(figure 9).

• Dot as artistic income: archaeological life

brought me to Santander (north Spain) to

attend a meeting. I visited Covalanas Cave,

in where there are a stunning Prehistoric

rock art, representations of deers made by

dots. I tried to reproduce how these could

had be done drawing points, as I did with

tattoo above. The dot as art is just a retros-

pective category to name a creative process

we unknown (figure 10).

. Dot as unit of measure: one of the common

uses for a point is to measure things, to make

accounts. In this sense, archaeology uses

measure tools and points of reference.

Doing so, what we see can be understood.

The points constitutes a basis for the horizon

of possibilities, articulated around aesthetics

of archaeology and the narrative of bring the

Past in the Present.

The stone wall is not neither natural nor

cultural; never left to be material. It is signi-

ficant just in the reign of modern rationality,

while became part of the life story of lands-

cape since ever (figure 10).

REVISTA CHAKIÑAN, 2017, Nº.3, DICIEMBRE, (20-40)

ISSN 2550-6722

What is a dot?

According to the common definition, we

could find in any dictionary a dot is a “small

signal which is perceived due to its (color)

contrast with the surface, commonly repre-

sented as circular” and as “grammatical

signal which indicates the end of a sentence

or a pause in a wider text much more than

any other grammatical sign” (note that in

Spanish, the word ‘punto’ means both ‘dot’

and ‘point’. These definitions have been

taken from the Spanish language Academy

dictionary www.rae.es). This is similar to

the concept we imagine at the time to read

the word ‘dot’. However, what is actually a

point, a dot? If visual element perceived by

contrast with his background, are also dots

all the elements that contrast with a back-

ground? Indeed, to identify something by

contrast is the basis of perception.

In Spanish language, dot and point have the

same meaning. A point could be several

things depends of the discipline. We can use

points for measure; to refer to the minimum

contact with a surface; are also a geometric

form; a concept of limits like in Maths; as

indicator of a point; a grammatical sign; an

indicator of temperature; use it when one

status change to another; as anatomy indica-

tor (cardinal points), etc. In Latin, a point

(punctum) is any hole done by drawing. It

represent something that has ended or what

are going to start. Also something which

serve to rest, a pause, the end and the begin,

anger, quantitative valuation, bodies in the

space.

In all this senses of the use of a point (dot),

we see two main characteristics: 1-it index

or represent the objectification of a real

phenomenon (eg. measurable properties),

and 2-it is the transmutation from one status

to another. These two possible meanings are

fluctuating between passivity and activity,

pause and speed.

In this artwork, I will try to show this objec-

tification and transmutation using the

concept of ‘dot’ applied to several archaeo-

logical contexts. Following this, I have

found the point, the dot as a movement and

as materiality as well. Like an act of ethno-

graphic documentation and as an artistic

indetermination where a point is something

theoretic, imagined, observable, to face it

out.

To distill the world in such a manner to be

able to fit the phenomena into mainstream

categories of classification, it is common the

use of points. This use means to push one

status into another, like reflecting vests

making visible new subjects in the landsca-

pe. The point is the sensitive beginning that

attracts our attention.

Beyond the grammaticalness, we find the

dot as a universal key to understand materia-

lity like stone structures or pottery sherds

emerging during excavation (indeed the

finds are perceived as goals, that is, to

follow a grammatical relation, to consider

them as points too). Therefore, the remains

are points of attention and can be connected

with other kinds of different-nature points,

like if we were surrealists sailing in a sea of

alternative realities. The dot could be passi-

ve but also performative indicator of the

creative acts performed by archaeologists.

Here the dot is not a textual symbol just in

its very meaning; ontologically (if we accept

the ontology of a dot); it is diverse and hete-

rogeneous, in unexpected ways. If the dot

have a very nature, it would be possible

because there are something material on it,

something that should be independent from

us, with a life-story. If not, we are talking of

dot typologies, artificial, textual features

imagined over materials -then observed

features that fit into pre-stablished catego-

ries of analysis.

So, said that long explanation of the theory

that informs my position, let me present the

artwork finally. In this photo-essay, you can

observe the pairs of pics accompanied with a

short explanation of the dot identified in

each case.

• Dot as minimal contact with a surface: this

pair of photographs comes from a moment

during the excavation of the Archaeodrome

simulated site. Here the dot could be identi-

fied due to its role as articulator of interac-

tions between the body, the trench and the

white threads used to delimit the squares to

be excavated -two epistemological worlds

that contact one to each other in the same

fluid world. The white threads, parts cut

from the same thread, are also contacting

one to each other, creating a dot at the cross

point, as dot as minimal contact with a surfa-

ce (figure 2).

• Dot as point: this pair shows the nails used

to keep the threads of the trench. These two

points are markers in the landscape of the

site, and requires a careful attention to not to

move them. Even several forces (hits with a

hammer, stones, and nails pressure) would

be mobilized to make them stable points.

Once the trench has been excavated, these

nails are keep as axis of the internal order of

the practice. Also they marks the boundaries

of the site and represent a physical path in

which significant elements are exported and

imported to inform the next steps of the

excavation. As almost the unique fixed point

in a fluid practice, all depends of its mainte-

nance. After the excavation, the little holes

left by them, in case to being removed, will

be there as much as the earth of the site in

the iron surface of the nail (figure 2).

• Dot as numbers: these couple of pairs

shows the diary of the survey at Monte

Miravete site, in which the team had written

the coordinates of the structures found on

the site. Every sequence of numbers repre-

sent a point inside the space in where there

are an archaeological remain, but also these

sequences are points inside the context of

the paper. Even we represented them as

black points with names and numbers in a

digital map. This record means to incorpora-

te conceptual information both in the practi-

ce of survey and in next visits, articulating

with maps and points further engagements

with the landscape (figure 3).

• Dot as representation: the archaeological

drawing is made by the contact of the pencil

in a paper surface. The dots used to repre-

sent volumes and irregularities of the

archaeological artifacts serves not only to

make a testimony of veracity of what has

been recover, but also allows to conceptuali-

ze the materials for the study of its proper-

ties. However, this study is only logic inside

the rules of the method, otherwise the draw

would be an unreal representation made by

the interaction of the pencil, the ink, the

paper, the hand and the intentions of the

author. If the draw contains enough veracity,

it is because the conceptualization of the

materials recovered: they are like points in

the context of the research that are transfor-

med into a thousand of points in the draw.

This exercise follows a direction of disgre-

gation, the disappearance of materiality into

its technological representation. The ontolo-

gy of the materials is seen analogue to the

artificiality of the dots, clearly separated

from the field but incorporated in further

practices (figure 3).

• Dot as form: summer. We are surveying an

18km² site in which we found this circu-

lar-shape structures, kilns of the 19th

century. These structures seems to be dot-li-

ke, circular points. In addition, there are

other kinds of dots since we can represent

them in maps, using points as have seen

above. We can draw those structures using

points, and even the record sheets shows two

points more: the draft plant and the textual

description. Since structures have made its

own paths in coordination with the rest of

the elements of landscape, those paths we

involuntarily followed in the survey, the

structures are also articulators of some parti-

cular phenomena in which the movements

of the archaeologists are included (figure 4).

• Dot as diacritic symbol: in the architecture

of photograph, relevant elements like mate-

rials found are perceived as points among

the rest of elements seen. These elements are

points of attention, these that makes the

image 'archaeological-like'. In this sense,

tools like the trowel are also points in the

photograph, defining the pic as a meta-re-

presentation of the archaeological practice.

In visual terms, they refer to a world outside

the available information in the image (figu-

re 5).

• Dot as physical change: from the soil, the

finds emerge through the actions of volun-

teers. As a find, this little lamp is a point in

the context of the entire research. However,

this material, composed by a reunion of clay,

paint and maker's hands, also have a history

of life, which is hidden for the volunteers. It

was made by us, prior to its earthing in the

site. Nevertheless, independently of this

fact, to be corroborated has to be presented

through photographs under the terms of the

archaeological documentation. From clay

-materially- to a namely category -medieval

lamp- this remain is conceived at the distan-

ce as a point, contrasting with the ground,

and with several temporalities (figure 5).

• Dot as anatomy: maps represent several

geographical features. Since what are repre-

sented is the relevant elements for the

research, and the research is conducted by

human aspirations guided by materiality, the

map would incorporate a sensual geography

of landscape. Not just geographical informa-

tion, but also paths, remains, special places

to be remembered. The points of the maps

are not only passive representation of visited

places, but also a projection of memories

and possible possibilities for future. This

kind of points could be also iconic represen-

tations showing how the corporal move-

ments in the space (figure 6) are.

• Dot as performance: there are no much

conserved examples of ancient, prehistoric

tattoo. Some of these few examples seems to

be enough information for create a discourse

about the Pazyryk culture (Argent 2013).

The analysis of relationships between repre-

sentations and cultural aesthetic schemes

has been common. The performative act of

tattoo, the incorporation of real beliefs and

aspirations through hand movements into

the skin with inked sticks, reminds the crea-

tion of documents over which we hope to

continue the research. To tattoo implies the

explicit insertion of thousand dots into the

skin (figure 6).

• Dot as grammatical symbol: it is common

to think that archaeological information is

complete when it is published. Then all the

experiences, processes, engagements and

contacts with materials are summarized and

selected, written in few pages. Those pages

are white surfaces in which black ink is

deposited, creating forms that represent

signs. It usually happens with the act of

typing on a computer. As Ingold pointed out,

typing is the example of how modern human

beings are losing their humanity, since we

only use the fingertips in our interaction

with the material world (2013). In the text

itself, we also use signs. Moreover, some of

these takes the form of pics, figures and

quotes, points referring to other realities

among seas of words. Here the dot act for

understand the text, to have an experience of

reading based on little stops and ongoing

reading. Then it is a performative act ruled

by this symbolism, also physically present

with a mount of ink in the form of a dot

(figure 7). The dot is always out there, in

daily experience, making us to stop and

breathe.

• Dot as bodily experience: our bodies are

part of the landscape of the research. On

fieldwork, archaeologists with reflecting

vests are material points in this landscape.

However, for foreigners and for the ethno-

grapher, they are part also of the wider natu-

ral environment. Being points, their engage-

ment with the field happens through artifi-

cial understanding of nature (figure 8).

• Dot as concept: this pic shows the record

sheets to document the archaeological

findings. These sheets are analogue to the

camera, in the sense they works in the same

way instrumentalizing real phenomena. The

conceptualization of the stone structures is

done first with a textual description of its

main characteristics, then with a draft

drawing through which measures, locations,

coordinates, and are recorded. This is the

creation of points from points to make more

points in the maps and publications

(figure 9).

• Dot as geometry: here the dot is evident.

The circular-shape of this fragment of

pottery reminds us that the idea of materiali-

ty recognizable from geometry to be

contemplated is profoundly ocularcentric.

This fragment was a point in the fieldwork,

now is a point in the database since it is one

of the significant pieces of the research

(figure 9).

• Dot as artistic income: archaeological life

brought me to Santander (north Spain) to

attend a meeting. I visited Covalanas Cave,

in where there are a stunning Prehistoric

rock art, representations of deers made by

dots. I tried to reproduce how these could

had be done drawing points, as I did with

tattoo above. The dot as art is just a retros-

pective category to name a creative process

we unknown (figure 10).

. Dot as unit of measure: one of the common

uses for a point is to measure things, to make

accounts. In this sense, archaeology uses

measure tools and points of reference.

Doing so, what we see can be understood.

The points constitutes a basis for the horizon

of possibilities, articulated around aesthetics

of archaeology and the narrative of bring the

Past in the Present.

The stone wall is not neither natural nor

cultural; never left to be material. It is signi-

ficant just in the reign of modern rationality,

while became part of the life story of lands-

cape since ever (figure 10).

REVISTA CHAKIÑAN, 2017, Nº.3, DICIEMBRE, (20-40)

ISSN 2550-6722

What is a dot?

According to the common definition, we

could find in any dictionary a dot is a “small

signal which is perceived due to its (color)

contrast with the surface, commonly repre-

sented as circular” and as “grammatical

signal which indicates the end of a sentence

or a pause in a wider text much more than

any other grammatical sign” (note that in

Spanish, the word ‘punto’ means both ‘dot’

and ‘point’. These definitions have been

taken from the Spanish language Academy

dictionary www.rae.es). This is similar to

the concept we imagine at the time to read

the word ‘dot’. However, what is actually a

point, a dot? If visual element perceived by

contrast with his background, are also dots

all the elements that contrast with a back-

ground? Indeed, to identify something by

contrast is the basis of perception.

In Spanish language, dot and point have the

same meaning. A point could be several

things depends of the discipline. We can use

points for measure; to refer to the minimum

contact with a surface; are also a geometric

form; a concept of limits like in Maths; as

indicator of a point; a grammatical sign; an

indicator of temperature; use it when one

status change to another; as anatomy indica-

tor (cardinal points), etc. In Latin, a point

(punctum) is any hole done by drawing. It

represent something that has ended or what

are going to start. Also something which

serve to rest, a pause, the end and the begin,

anger, quantitative valuation, bodies in the

space.

In all this senses of the use of a point (dot),

we see two main characteristics: 1-it index

or represent the objectification of a real

phenomenon (eg. measurable properties),

and 2-it is the transmutation from one status

to another. These two possible meanings are

fluctuating between passivity and activity,

pause and speed.

In this artwork, I will try to show this objec-

tification and transmutation using the

concept of ‘dot’ applied to several archaeo-

logical contexts. Following this, I have

found the point, the dot as a movement and

as materiality as well. Like an act of ethno-

graphic documentation and as an artistic

indetermination where a point is something

theoretic, imagined, observable, to face it

out.

To distill the world in such a manner to be

able to fit the phenomena into mainstream

categories of classification, it is common the

use of points. This use means to push one

status into another, like reflecting vests

making visible new subjects in the landsca-

pe. The point is the sensitive beginning that

attracts our attention.

Beyond the grammaticalness, we find the

dot as a universal key to understand materia-

lity like stone structures or pottery sherds

emerging during excavation (indeed the

finds are perceived as goals, that is, to

follow a grammatical relation, to consider

them as points too). Therefore, the remains

are points of attention and can be connected

with other kinds of different-nature points,

like if we were surrealists sailing in a sea of

alternative realities. The dot could be passi-

ve but also performative indicator of the

creative acts performed by archaeologists.

Here the dot is not a textual symbol just in

its very meaning; ontologically (if we accept

the ontology of a dot); it is diverse and hete-

rogeneous, in unexpected ways. If the dot

have a very nature, it would be possible

because there are something material on it,

something that should be independent from

us, with a life-story. If not, we are talking of

dot typologies, artificial, textual features

imagined over materials -then observed

features that fit into pre-stablished catego-

ries of analysis.

So, said that long explanation of the theory

that informs my position, let me present the

artwork finally. In this photo-essay, you can

observe the pairs of pics accompanied with a

short explanation of the dot identified in

each case.

• Dot as minimal contact with a surface: this

pair of photographs comes from a moment

during the excavation of the Archaeodrome

simulated site. Here the dot could be identi-

fied due to its role as articulator of interac-

tions between the body, the trench and the

white threads used to delimit the squares to

be excavated -two epistemological worlds

that contact one to each other in the same

fluid world. The white threads, parts cut

from the same thread, are also contacting

one to each other, creating a dot at the cross

point, as dot as minimal contact with a surfa-

ce (figure 2).

• Dot as point: this pair shows the nails used

to keep the threads of the trench. These two

points are markers in the landscape of the

site, and requires a careful attention to not to

move them. Even several forces (hits with a

hammer, stones, and nails pressure) would

be mobilized to make them stable points.

Once the trench has been excavated, these

nails are keep as axis of the internal order of

the practice. Also they marks the boundaries

of the site and represent a physical path in

which significant elements are exported and

imported to inform the next steps of the

excavation. As almost the unique fixed point

in a fluid practice, all depends of its mainte-

nance. After the excavation, the little holes

left by them, in case to being removed, will

be there as much as the earth of the site in

the iron surface of the nail (figure 2).

• Dot as numbers: these couple of pairs

shows the diary of the survey at Monte

Miravete site, in which the team had written

the coordinates of the structures found on

the site. Every sequence of numbers repre-

sent a point inside the space in where there

are an archaeological remain, but also these

sequences are points inside the context of

the paper. Even we represented them as

black points with names and numbers in a

digital map. This record means to incorpora-

te conceptual information both in the practi-

ce of survey and in next visits, articulating

with maps and points further engagements

with the landscape (figure 3).

• Dot as representation: the archaeological

drawing is made by the contact of the pencil

in a paper surface. The dots used to repre-

sent volumes and irregularities of the

archaeological artifacts serves not only to

make a testimony of veracity of what has

been recover, but also allows to conceptuali-

ze the materials for the study of its proper-

ties. However, this study is only logic inside

the rules of the method, otherwise the draw

would be an unreal representation made by

the interaction of the pencil, the ink, the

paper, the hand and the intentions of the

author. If the draw contains enough veracity,

it is because the conceptualization of the

materials recovered: they are like points in

the context of the research that are transfor-

med into a thousand of points in the draw.

This exercise follows a direction of disgre-

gation, the disappearance of materiality into

its technological representation. The ontolo-

gy of the materials is seen analogue to the

artificiality of the dots, clearly separated

from the field but incorporated in further

practices (figure 3).

• Dot as form: summer. We are surveying an

18km² site in which we found this circu-

lar-shape structures, kilns of the 19th

century. These structures seems to be dot-li-

ke, circular points. In addition, there are

other kinds of dots since we can represent

them in maps, using points as have seen

above. We can draw those structures using

points, and even the record sheets shows two

points more: the draft plant and the textual

description. Since structures have made its

own paths in coordination with the rest of

the elements of landscape, those paths we

involuntarily followed in the survey, the

structures are also articulators of some parti-

cular phenomena in which the movements

of the archaeologists are included (figure 4).

• Dot as diacritic symbol: in the architecture

of photograph, relevant elements like mate-

rials found are perceived as points among

the rest of elements seen. These elements are

points of attention, these that makes the

image 'archaeological-like'. In this sense,

tools like the trowel are also points in the

photograph, defining the pic as a meta-re-

presentation of the archaeological practice.

In visual terms, they refer to a world outside

the available information in the image (figu-

re 5).

• Dot as physical change: from the soil, the

finds emerge through the actions of volun-

teers. As a find, this little lamp is a point in

the context of the entire research. However,

this material, composed by a reunion of clay,

paint and maker's hands, also have a history

of life, which is hidden for the volunteers. It

was made by us, prior to its earthing in the

site. Nevertheless, independently of this

fact, to be corroborated has to be presented

through photographs under the terms of the

archaeological documentation. From clay

-materially- to a namely category -medieval

lamp- this remain is conceived at the distan-

ce as a point, contrasting with the ground,

and with several temporalities (figure 5).

• Dot as anatomy: maps represent several

geographical features. Since what are repre-

sented is the relevant elements for the

research, and the research is conducted by

human aspirations guided by materiality, the

map would incorporate a sensual geography

of landscape. Not just geographical informa-

tion, but also paths, remains, special places

to be remembered. The points of the maps

are not only passive representation of visited

places, but also a projection of memories

and possible possibilities for future. This

kind of points could be also iconic represen-

tations showing how the corporal move-

ments in the space (figure 6) are.

• Dot as performance: there are no much

conserved examples of ancient, prehistoric

tattoo. Some of these few examples seems to

be enough information for create a discourse

about the Pazyryk culture (Argent 2013).

The analysis of relationships between repre-

sentations and cultural aesthetic schemes

has been common. The performative act of

tattoo, the incorporation of real beliefs and

aspirations through hand movements into

the skin with inked sticks, reminds the crea-

tion of documents over which we hope to

continue the research. To tattoo implies the

explicit insertion of thousand dots into the

skin (figure 6).

• Dot as grammatical symbol: it is common

to think that archaeological information is

complete when it is published. Then all the

experiences, processes, engagements and

contacts with materials are summarized and

selected, written in few pages. Those pages

are white surfaces in which black ink is

deposited, creating forms that represent

signs. It usually happens with the act of

typing on a computer. As Ingold pointed out,

typing is the example of how modern human

beings are losing their humanity, since we

only use the fingertips in our interaction

with the material world (2013). In the text

itself, we also use signs. Moreover, some of

these takes the form of pics, figures and

quotes, points referring to other realities

among seas of words. Here the dot act for

understand the text, to have an experience of

reading based on little stops and ongoing

reading. Then it is a performative act ruled

by this symbolism, also physically present

with a mount of ink in the form of a dot

(figure 7). The dot is always out there, in

daily experience, making us to stop and

breathe.

• Dot as bodily experience: our bodies are

part of the landscape of the research. On

fieldwork, archaeologists with reflecting

vests are material points in this landscape.

However, for foreigners and for the ethno-

grapher, they are part also of the wider natu-

ral environment. Being points, their engage-

ment with the field happens through artifi-

cial understanding of nature (figure 8).

• Dot as concept: this pic shows the record

sheets to document the archaeological

findings. These sheets are analogue to the

camera, in the sense they works in the same

way instrumentalizing real phenomena. The

conceptualization of the stone structures is

done first with a textual description of its

main characteristics, then with a draft

drawing through which measures, locations,

coordinates, and are recorded. This is the

creation of points from points to make more

points in the maps and publications

(figure 9).

• Dot as geometry: here the dot is evident.

The circular-shape of this fragment of

pottery reminds us that the idea of materiali-

ty recognizable from geometry to be

contemplated is profoundly ocularcentric.

This fragment was a point in the fieldwork,

now is a point in the database since it is one

of the significant pieces of the research

(figure 9).

• Dot as artistic income: archaeological life

brought me to Santander (north Spain) to

attend a meeting. I visited Covalanas Cave,

in where there are a stunning Prehistoric

rock art, representations of deers made by

dots. I tried to reproduce how these could

had be done drawing points, as I did with

tattoo above. The dot as art is just a retros-

pective category to name a creative process

we unknown (figure 10).

. Dot as unit of measure: one of the common

uses for a point is to measure things, to make

accounts. In this sense, archaeology uses

measure tools and points of reference.

Doing so, what we see can be understood.

The points constitutes a basis for the horizon

of possibilities, articulated around aesthetics

of archaeology and the narrative of bring the

Past in the Present.

The stone wall is not neither natural nor

cultural; never left to be material. It is signi-

ficant just in the reign of modern rationality,

while became part of the life story of lands-

cape since ever (figure 10).

REVISTA CHAKIÑAN, 2017, Nº.3, DICIEMBRE, (20-40)

ISSN 2550-6722

What is a dot?

According to the common definition, we

could find in any dictionary a dot is a “small

signal which is perceived due to its (color)

contrast with the surface, commonly repre-

sented as circular” and as “grammatical

signal which indicates the end of a sentence

or a pause in a wider text much more than

any other grammatical sign” (note that in

Spanish, the word ‘punto’ means both ‘dot’

and ‘point’. These definitions have been

taken from the Spanish language Academy

dictionary www.rae.es). This is similar to

the concept we imagine at the time to read

the word ‘dot’. However, what is actually a

point, a dot? If visual element perceived by

contrast with his background, are also dots

all the elements that contrast with a back-

ground? Indeed, to identify something by

contrast is the basis of perception.

In Spanish language, dot and point have the

same meaning. A point could be several

things depends of the discipline. We can use

points for measure; to refer to the minimum

contact with a surface; are also a geometric

form; a concept of limits like in Maths; as

indicator of a point; a grammatical sign; an

indicator of temperature; use it when one

status change to another; as anatomy indica-

tor (cardinal points), etc. In Latin, a point

(punctum) is any hole done by drawing. It

represent something that has ended or what

are going to start. Also something which

serve to rest, a pause, the end and the begin,

anger, quantitative valuation, bodies in the

space.

In all this senses of the use of a point (dot),

we see two main characteristics: 1-it index

or represent the objectification of a real

phenomenon (eg. measurable properties),

and 2-it is the transmutation from one status

to another. These two possible meanings are

fluctuating between passivity and activity,

pause and speed.

In this artwork, I will try to show this objec-

tification and transmutation using the

concept of ‘dot’ applied to several archaeo-

logical contexts. Following this, I have

found the point, the dot as a movement and

as materiality as well. Like an act of ethno-

graphic documentation and as an artistic

indetermination where a point is something

theoretic, imagined, observable, to face it

out.

To distill the world in such a manner to be

able to fit the phenomena into mainstream

categories of classification, it is common the

use of points. This use means to push one

status into another, like reflecting vests

making visible new subjects in the landsca-

pe. The point is the sensitive beginning that

attracts our attention.

Beyond the grammaticalness, we find the

dot as a universal key to understand materia-

lity like stone structures or pottery sherds

emerging during excavation (indeed the

finds are perceived as goals, that is, to

follow a grammatical relation, to consider

them as points too). Therefore, the remains

are points of attention and can be connected

with other kinds of different-nature points,

like if we were surrealists sailing in a sea of

alternative realities. The dot could be passi-

ve but also performative indicator of the

creative acts performed by archaeologists.

Here the dot is not a textual symbol just in

its very meaning; ontologically (if we accept

the ontology of a dot); it is diverse and hete-

rogeneous, in unexpected ways. If the dot

have a very nature, it would be possible

because there are something material on it,

something that should be independent from

us, with a life-story. If not, we are talking of

dot typologies, artificial, textual features

imagined over materials -then observed

features that fit into pre-stablished catego-

ries of analysis.

So, said that long explanation of the theory

that informs my position, let me present the

artwork finally. In this photo-essay, you can

observe the pairs of pics accompanied with a

short explanation of the dot identified in

each case.

• Dot as minimal contact with a surface: this

pair of photographs comes from a moment

during the excavation of the Archaeodrome

simulated site. Here the dot could be identi-

fied due to its role as articulator of interac-

tions between the body, the trench and the

white threads used to delimit the squares to

be excavated -two epistemological worlds

that contact one to each other in the same

fluid world. The white threads, parts cut

from the same thread, are also contacting

one to each other, creating a dot at the cross

point, as dot as minimal contact with a surfa-

ce (figure 2).

• Dot as point: this pair shows the nails used

to keep the threads of the trench. These two

points are markers in the landscape of the

site, and requires a careful attention to not to

move them. Even several forces (hits with a

hammer, stones, and nails pressure) would

be mobilized to make them stable points.

Once the trench has been excavated, these

nails are keep as axis of the internal order of

the practice. Also they marks the boundaries

of the site and represent a physical path in

which significant elements are exported and

imported to inform the next steps of the

excavation. As almost the unique fixed point

in a fluid practice, all depends of its mainte-

nance. After the excavation, the little holes

left by them, in case to being removed, will

be there as much as the earth of the site in

the iron surface of the nail (figure 2).

• Dot as numbers: these couple of pairs

shows the diary of the survey at Monte

Miravete site, in which the team had written

the coordinates of the structures found on

the site. Every sequence of numbers repre-

sent a point inside the space in where there

are an archaeological remain, but also these

sequences are points inside the context of

the paper. Even we represented them as

black points with names and numbers in a

digital map. This record means to incorpora-

te conceptual information both in the practi-

ce of survey and in next visits, articulating

with maps and points further engagements

with the landscape (figure 3).

• Dot as representation: the archaeological

drawing is made by the contact of the pencil

in a paper surface. The dots used to repre-

sent volumes and irregularities of the

archaeological artifacts serves not only to

make a testimony of veracity of what has

been recover, but also allows to conceptuali-

ze the materials for the study of its proper-

ties. However, this study is only logic inside

the rules of the method, otherwise the draw

would be an unreal representation made by

the interaction of the pencil, the ink, the

paper, the hand and the intentions of the

author. If the draw contains enough veracity,

it is because the conceptualization of the

materials recovered: they are like points in

the context of the research that are transfor-

med into a thousand of points in the draw.

This exercise follows a direction of disgre-

gation, the disappearance of materiality into

its technological representation. The ontolo-

gy of the materials is seen analogue to the

artificiality of the dots, clearly separated

from the field but incorporated in further

practices (figure 3).

• Dot as form: summer. We are surveying an

18km² site in which we found this circu-

lar-shape structures, kilns of the 19th

century. These structures seems to be dot-li-

ke, circular points. In addition, there are

other kinds of dots since we can represent

them in maps, using points as have seen

above. We can draw those structures using

points, and even the record sheets shows two

points more: the draft plant and the textual

description. Since structures have made its

own paths in coordination with the rest of

the elements of landscape, those paths we

involuntarily followed in the survey, the

structures are also articulators of some parti-

cular phenomena in which the movements

of the archaeologists are included (figure 4).

• Dot as diacritic symbol: in the architecture

of photograph, relevant elements like mate-

rials found are perceived as points among

the rest of elements seen. These elements are

points of attention, these that makes the

image 'archaeological-like'. In this sense,

tools like the trowel are also points in the

photograph, defining the pic as a meta-re-

presentation of the archaeological practice.

In visual terms, they refer to a world outside

the available information in the image (figu-

re 5).

• Dot as physical change: from the soil, the

finds emerge through the actions of volun-

teers. As a find, this little lamp is a point in

the context of the entire research. However,

this material, composed by a reunion of clay,

paint and maker's hands, also have a history

of life, which is hidden for the volunteers. It

was made by us, prior to its earthing in the

site. Nevertheless, independently of this

fact, to be corroborated has to be presented

through photographs under the terms of the

archaeological documentation. From clay

-materially- to a namely category -medieval

lamp- this remain is conceived at the distan-

ce as a point, contrasting with the ground,

and with several temporalities (figure 5).

• Dot as anatomy: maps represent several

geographical features. Since what are repre-

sented is the relevant elements for the

research, and the research is conducted by

human aspirations guided by materiality, the

map would incorporate a sensual geography

of landscape. Not just geographical informa-

tion, but also paths, remains, special places

to be remembered. The points of the maps

are not only passive representation of visited

places, but also a projection of memories

and possible possibilities for future. This

kind of points could be also iconic represen-

tations showing how the corporal move-

ments in the space (figure 6) are.

• Dot as performance: there are no much

conserved examples of ancient, prehistoric

tattoo. Some of these few examples seems to

be enough information for create a discourse

about the Pazyryk culture (Argent 2013).

The analysis of relationships between repre-

sentations and cultural aesthetic schemes

has been common. The performative act of

tattoo, the incorporation of real beliefs and

aspirations through hand movements into

the skin with inked sticks, reminds the crea-

tion of documents over which we hope to

continue the research. To tattoo implies the

explicit insertion of thousand dots into the

skin (figure 6).

• Dot as grammatical symbol: it is common

to think that archaeological information is

complete when it is published. Then all the

experiences, processes, engagements and

contacts with materials are summarized and

selected, written in few pages. Those pages

are white surfaces in which black ink is

deposited, creating forms that represent

signs. It usually happens with the act of

typing on a computer. As Ingold pointed out,

typing is the example of how modern human

beings are losing their humanity, since we

only use the fingertips in our interaction

with the material world (2013). In the text

itself, we also use signs. Moreover, some of

these takes the form of pics, figures and

quotes, points referring to other realities

among seas of words. Here the dot act for

understand the text, to have an experience of

reading based on little stops and ongoing

reading. Then it is a performative act ruled

by this symbolism, also physically present

with a mount of ink in the form of a dot

(figure 7). The dot is always out there, in

daily experience, making us to stop and

breathe.

• Dot as bodily experience: our bodies are

part of the landscape of the research. On

fieldwork, archaeologists with reflecting

vests are material points in this landscape.

However, for foreigners and for the ethno-

grapher, they are part also of the wider natu-

ral environment. Being points, their engage-

ment with the field happens through artifi-

cial understanding of nature (figure 8).

• Dot as concept: this pic shows the record

sheets to document the archaeological

findings. These sheets are analogue to the

camera, in the sense they works in the same

way instrumentalizing real phenomena. The

conceptualization of the stone structures is

done first with a textual description of its

main characteristics, then with a draft

drawing through which measures, locations,

coordinates, and are recorded. This is the

creation of points from points to make more

points in the maps and publications

(figure 9).

• Dot as geometry: here the dot is evident.

The circular-shape of this fragment of

pottery reminds us that the idea of materiali-

ty recognizable from geometry to be

contemplated is profoundly ocularcentric.

This fragment was a point in the fieldwork,

now is a point in the database since it is one

of the significant pieces of the research

(figure 9).

• Dot as artistic income: archaeological life

brought me to Santander (north Spain) to

attend a meeting. I visited Covalanas Cave,

in where there are a stunning Prehistoric

rock art, representations of deers made by

dots. I tried to reproduce how these could

had be done drawing points, as I did with

tattoo above. The dot as art is just a retros-

pective category to name a creative process

we unknown (figure 10).

. Dot as unit of measure: one of the common

uses for a point is to measure things, to make

accounts. In this sense, archaeology uses

measure tools and points of reference.

Doing so, what we see can be understood.

The points constitutes a basis for the horizon

of possibilities, articulated around aesthetics

of archaeology and the narrative of bring the

Past in the Present.

The stone wall is not neither natural nor

cultural; never left to be material. It is signi-

ficant just in the reign of modern rationality,

while became part of the life story of lands-

cape since ever (figure 10).

REVISTA CHAKIÑAN, 2017, Nº.3, DICIEMBRE, (20-40)

ISSN 2550-6722

REVISTA CHAKIÑAN, 2017, Nº.3, DICIEMBRE, (20-40)

ISSN 2550-6722

we are living, non quantifiable goods sounds

useless. Specially high technology has been

conceived as exclusive mediator with the

world -we act through the machines, losing

the capacity to make knowledge emerge if it

depend of bodily engagement. Now techno-

logy owns the genuine agency in the crea-

tion of knowledge. This contrast with the

conceptualization of the Present as actuality,

as conjunction of Presents. These Presents

doesn't follow straight chronological lines

like the ones conceived under the modern

idea of progress and technology-based ideo-

logies, but the Present is no more than an

instant, just the instant of the movement, and

the Past does not exist anymore since is

impossible to repeat or reproduce something

that change at every second (Bergson 1963).

In the checking, comparison attitude over

the pairs of pics of the artwork, the time

passing is corroborated: the pics changes at

every second as the viewer takes awareness

of the dots.

“The ontology of the dot” is only a contribu-

tion to the line of Art-Archaeology, trying to

theorize in archaeology through the active

participation with both artistic and archaeo-

logical practices. This is a theoretical propo-

sition born in the ongoing process of attend a

meeting in Kyoto. What is the relation

between the meeting and this work? Theory

depends of inspiration, as art. In this sense, I

do not understand theoretical thought out of

practice as if were a collateral effect of

processual analysis. Theory is also about

acting, and I act doing this artwork. To point

out the existence of dots into the archaeolo-

gical practice and the dot as concept of meta-

morphosis that can be applied to processes

of fragmentation and unification, just exem-

plify how the textual understanding of mate-

riality is too far from real growing nature of

things. This is the trick: the 'ontology of the

dot' is an oxymoron. I hope to have shown

some possibilities for creativity beyond

CONCLUSIONS

In this paper I have tried to theorize about

those entities that articulates the archaeolo-

gical practice, which are not natural nor

cultural, neither physical nor mental, but a

mixture. According to this perspective,

knowledge is not constructed nor discove-

red, but is emergent through practice (Simo-

netti 2013). This departs from the concep-

tion of epistemology as an artificial set of

categories superimposed to the world, in

which human intervention is only a chapter

of the independent life-story of things. In

this sense to talk about the idea of “search

entities in the world” is an unsuccessful

enterprise -such entities does not exist onto-

logically.

In the context of the “material turn” in

archaeological theory, archaeologists have

tried to come back to things in order to

understand the role of materiality in the

constitution of the social -a framework

influenced by the actor-network theory of

philosopher Bruno Latour. But this perspec-

tive still takes the human intentions over the

materials, since materials seems to be

conceived as accessible goods to human

projects, as if were at the shelf in the super-

market, and then to be incorporated to

human actions. The distance between mate-

rials and humans is dichotomic. Instead of

this, humans can follow the life-stories of

things, like in the meshwork of Tim Ingold

(eg. Ingold 2008). From a creative point of

view, the first theory focus on results and the

second on processes. However, to focus on

results also involves having a predetermina-

te plan of action, which guide the creative

practice until the income arrives. This is

clear in the high technology since based on

play this role like an instrument between

human intentions and data in form of episte-

mological 'truth'. With any creative engage-

ment of the capacities of our body working

with the materials, this process implies a

distance. In addition, this distance is based

on the sight, on incomes to be contemplated

resulted from pre-established plans and

designs to be implemented in advance. This

doctrine is called ocularcentrism (Jay 1993).

Nevertheless, in this exercise I have tried to

avoid this hegemony of the specular. To use

visual incomes to talk about ontology could

be contradictory, so I made a direct observa-

tion through the scope of archaeological

photo-ethnography. This visual essay then is

not an artistic work but a creative process of

investigation, since the final income is not

the result of a premeditated plan but the

incidental result of the very process of iden-

tification of the 'dots'. It is incidental becau-

se, as surrealist’s states in the 1920s, there

are many alternative realities, which can

lead to unexpected entities.

The artistic work takes here the form of text,

photographs and reader’s imagination.

There are not a unique interpretation since

the identification of these dots are not objec-

tive. Indeed the claim of this paper is to point

out the 'ontology of the dot', but what actua-

lly have been shown are several typologies

of dots. Then dots may be epistemological,

artificial entities I superimpose over the

material world, as I physically did in the

edition of the pics. In addition, these types

are a pre-established categories used to

divide the several kinds of dots. If I did so is

because I felt something in these places,

independently if that sensation can be called

'dots'. Instead of give the name 'dot' to some

features of things that I perceived, some

features of things attracted my attention due

to its kinetic implications -then I named

them.

The evocative power of the artwork is also

part of our human condition. In this time of

anomia, liquid culture and high technology

visual terms. The essay is just the income of

a process where a symbol, the dot, were

traced in the ontology of materials. Howe-

ver, this is also a kind of poetical analysis

that guide us beneath the certainties of

modern archaeology.

REVISTA CHAKIÑAN, 2017, Nº.3, DICIEMBRE, (20-40)

ISSN 2550-6722

we are living, non quantifiable goods sounds

useless. Specially high technology has been

conceived as exclusive mediator with the

world -we act through the machines, losing

the capacity to make knowledge emerge if it

depend of bodily engagement. Now techno-

logy owns the genuine agency in the crea-

tion of knowledge. This contrast with the

conceptualization of the Present as actuality,

as conjunction of Presents. These Presents

doesn't follow straight chronological lines

like the ones conceived under the modern

idea of progress and technology-based ideo-

logies, but the Present is no more than an

instant, just the instant of the movement, and

the Past does not exist anymore since is

impossible to repeat or reproduce something

that change at every second (Bergson 1963).

In the checking, comparison attitude over

the pairs of pics of the artwork, the time

passing is corroborated: the pics changes at

every second as the viewer takes awareness

of the dots.

“The ontology of the dot” is only a contribu-

tion to the line of Art-Archaeology, trying to

theorize in archaeology through the active

participation with both artistic and archaeo-

logical practices. This is a theoretical propo-

sition born in the ongoing process of attend a

meeting in Kyoto. What is the relation

between the meeting and this work? Theory

depends of inspiration, as art. In this sense, I

do not understand theoretical thought out of

practice as if were a collateral effect of

processual analysis. Theory is also about

acting, and I act doing this artwork. To point

out the existence of dots into the archaeolo-

gical practice and the dot as concept of meta-

morphosis that can be applied to processes

of fragmentation and unification, just exem-

plify how the textual understanding of mate-

riality is too far from real growing nature of

things. This is the trick: the 'ontology of the

dot' is an oxymoron. I hope to have shown

some possibilities for creativity beyond

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In this paper I have tried to theorize about

those entities that articulates the archaeolo-

gical practice, which are not natural nor

cultural, neither physical nor mental, but a

mixture. According to this perspective,

knowledge is not constructed nor discove-

red, but is emergent through practice (Simo-

netti 2013). This departs from the concep-

tion of epistemology as an artificial set of

categories superimposed to the world, in

which human intervention is only a chapter

of the independent life-story of things. In

this sense to talk about the idea of “search

entities in the world” is an unsuccessful

enterprise -such entities does not exist onto-

logically.

In the context of the “material turn” in

archaeological theory, archaeologists have

tried to come back to things in order to

understand the role of materiality in the

constitution of the social -a framework

influenced by the actor-network theory of

philosopher Bruno Latour. But this perspec-

tive still takes the human intentions over the

materials, since materials seems to be

conceived as accessible goods to human

projects, as if were at the shelf in the super-

market, and then to be incorporated to

human actions. The distance between mate-

rials and humans is dichotomic. Instead of

this, humans can follow the life-stories of

things, like in the meshwork of Tim Ingold

(eg. Ingold 2008). From a creative point of

view, the first theory focus on results and the

second on processes. However, to focus on

results also involves having a predetermina-

te plan of action, which guide the creative

practice until the income arrives. This is

clear in the high technology since based on

play this role like an instrument between

human intentions and data in form of episte-

mological 'truth'. With any creative engage-

ment of the capacities of our body working

with the materials, this process implies a

distance. In addition, this distance is based

on the sight, on incomes to be contemplated

resulted from pre-established plans and

designs to be implemented in advance. This

doctrine is called ocularcentrism (Jay 1993).

Nevertheless, in this exercise I have tried to

avoid this hegemony of the specular. To use

visual incomes to talk about ontology could

be contradictory, so I made a direct observa-

tion through the scope of archaeological

photo-ethnography. This visual essay then is

not an artistic work but a creative process of

investigation, since the final income is not

the result of a premeditated plan but the

incidental result of the very process of iden-

tification of the 'dots'. It is incidental becau-

se, as surrealist’s states in the 1920s, there

are many alternative realities, which can

lead to unexpected entities.

The artistic work takes here the form of text,

photographs and reader’s imagination.

There are not a unique interpretation since

the identification of these dots are not objec-

tive. Indeed the claim of this paper is to point

out the 'ontology of the dot', but what actua-

lly have been shown are several typologies

of dots. Then dots may be epistemological,

artificial entities I superimpose over the

material world, as I physically did in the

edition of the pics. In addition, these types

are a pre-established categories used to

divide the several kinds of dots. If I did so is

because I felt something in these places,

independently if that sensation can be called

'dots'. Instead of give the name 'dot' to some

features of things that I perceived, some

features of things attracted my attention due

to its kinetic implications -then I named

them.

The evocative power of the artwork is also

part of our human condition. In this time of

anomia, liquid culture and high technology

visual terms. The essay is just the income of

a process where a symbol, the dot, were

traced in the ontology of materials. Howe-

ver, this is also a kind of poetical analysis

that guide us beneath the certainties of

modern archaeology.

I wish to express my gratitude to my family

for their support in my archaeological

life-adventure, and to all the actors of my

academic and artistic life during 2016: the

Archaeo-drome team and students, La Esta-

ción art-centre, Monte Miravete 2016 cam-

paign team and volunteers, and also to dr.

Matsumoto, dr. Barth and dr. Georghiu for

their important several roles in my attendan-

ce to WAC-8 in Japan and therefore in my

further inspirations. Thanks to IKEA Murcia

store to hire me during enough time to have

the chance to save money to start my PhD

studies, also for reinforce my desire to make

a better science in society knowing the real

world outside academia. Thanks to dr. V.

Fernández and dr. C. Simonetti for allow me

to research about what I want. All contents

error remains by my responsibility, especia-

lly those of topic's misunderstandings and

my argument’s contradictions. I hope to

have inspired you... Uncharted fields always

seems to be marvelous. Thanks.

REVISTA CHAKIÑAN, 2017, Nº.3, DICIEMBRE, (20-40)

ISSN 2550-6722

Argent, G. (2013). Inked: Human-horse apprenticeship,

tattoos, and time in the Pazyryk world. Society &

animals, 21(2), 178-193.

Bergson, H. (1963). La evolución creadora. In H.

Bergson. Obras Escogidas. Madrid, España: Aguilar.

Castañeda, Q. & Matthews, C. (2008). Ethnographic

archaeologies: reflections on stakehold-ers and archaeolo-

gical practices. Walnut Creek, United Estates:

Unidos: Altamira.

Cochrane, A. & Russell, I. (eds.). (2013). Art and archaeo-

logy: collaborations, conversations, criticisms. New

York, United Estate: Springer.

Clifford, J. (1988). On ethnographic surrealism. In J.

Clifford (ed.). The predicament of cul-ture. Cambrid-

ge, United Estate: Harvard University Press.

Edgeworth, M. (2010). On the boundary: new perspecti-

ves from ethnography of archaeology. In D.

Garrow & T. Yarrow (eds.). Archaeology and Anthro-

pology. Oxford, England: Ox-ford Books.

Edgeworth, M. (2006). Ethnographies of archaeological

practice: cultural encounters, materi-al transformations.

Walnut Creek, United Estates: Altamira.

Edgeworth, M. (2003). Acts of discovery: An ethnography of

archaeological practice (Vol. 1131). Oxford, England:

British Archaeological Reports.

Fernández, V. (2006). Una Arqueología Crítica: ciencia,

ética y política en la construcción del Pasado. Madrid,

España: Crítica.

González-Ruibal, A. (2012). Hacia otra Arqueología:

diez propuestas. Complutum, 23(2), 103-116.

Hamilakis, Y. (2014). Archaeology and the senses: human

experience, memory, and affect. Cambridge, England:

Cambridge University Press.

Hamilakis, Y. & Ifantidis, F. (2016). Camera Kalaureia: An

Archaeological Photo-Ethnography. Oxford, England:

Archaeopress.

Hamilakis, Y. & Anagnostopoulos, A. (2009). What is

archaeological ethnography? Public ar-chaeology,

8(2-3), 65-87.

Hamilakis, Y., Anagnostopoulos, A., & Ifantidis, F.

(2009). Postcards from the edge of time: archaeolo-

gy, photography, archaeological ethnography (a

photo-essay). Public Archaeology, 8(2-3), 283-309.

Hamilakis, Y., Pluciennik, M., and Tarlow, S. (2001).

Academic performances, artistic presen-tations.

Assemblage, (6), 7-21.

Heider, K. (1988). The Rashômon effect: When ethno-

graphers disagree. American Anthropologist, 90(1),

73-81.

Ingold, T. (2001). Anthropological perspectives on

technology. In T. Ingold. Beyond art and technology:

the anthropology of skill. Albuquerque, México:

University of New México Press.

Ingold, T. (2008). When ANT meets SPIDER: Social

REFERENCES

theory for arthropods. In C. Knappett & L.

Malafouris (eds.). Material Agency. Boston, United

Estate: Springer.

Ingold, T. (2013). Making Anthropology, archaeology, art

and architecture. London, England: Routledge.

Ingold, T. & Hallam, E. (2007). Creativity and Cultural

Improvisation. An Introduction. In E. Hallam & T.

Ingold (eds.). Creativity and Cultural Improvisa-

tion. Oxford, England: Berg.

Jay, M. (1993). Downcast eyes: The denigration of vision in

twentieth-century French thought. California, United

Estate: University of California Press.

Marmol, J. (2016). Proyecto Arqueológico Monte Miravete:

Foto-etnografía arqueológica #1. Un estudio visual y

sensorial del trabajo de campo de la campaña de

prospección arqueoló-gica de 2016 (Unpublished

book). Monte Miravete Project, Murcia, España.

Marmol, J. (2017). Dropping the trowel: three narratives

and one creative archaeology. AP Journa, (6),

75-116.

Moreno, W. (2013) Fotoetnografía educativa: una ruta

para comprender la cultura corporal escolarizada.

Revista Iberoamericana de educación, (62), 119-141.

Simonetti, C. (2013). En presencia de lo ausente.

Rastreando materiales en movimiento. Papeles de

Trabajo, 7(11), 40-61.

Simonetti, C. (2015). The stratification of time. Time &

Society, 24(2), 139-162.

Layton, R. (2003). Art and agency: a reassessment.

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 9(3),

447-464.

Shanks, M. (2004). Three rooms: Archaeology and

performance. Journal of Social Archaeolo-gy, 4(2),

147-180.

Shanks, M. (2012). The Archaeological Imagination.

Walnut Creek, United Estate: Left Coast Press.

Shanks, M. & Pearson, M. (2001). Theatre/archaeology:

Reflections on a hybrid genre. London, England:

Routledge.

Shanks, M. & Zvabo, C. (2013). Archaeology and photo-

graphy: A pragmatology. In A. Gon-zález-Ruibal

(ed.). Reclaiming Archaeology. Beyond the tropes of

Modernity (pp. 89-102). London, England: Routled-

ge.

Schneider, A. (2017). Alternative Art and Anthropology:

Global Encounters. London, England: Bloomsbury.

Renfrew, C. (2003). Figuring it out. Where do we come from?

What are we? Where are we going? London, England:

Thames & Hudson.

Ruiz, G. (2014). Fotografía y Arqueología: ventanas al

pasado con cristales traslúcidos. In E. Baquedano

(ed). Jose Latova. 40 años de Fotografía arqueológica

española. Madrid, España: Comunidad de Madrid.

Tilley, C., Hamilton, S. & Bender, B. (2000). Art and the

RePresentation of the Past. Journal of the Royal

Anthropological Institute, 6(1), 35-62.

Valdez-Tullet, J. & Chittock, H. (2016). Archaeology with

Art. Oxford, England: Archaeo-press.

Van Dyke, R. (2006). Seeing the past: Visual media in

Archaeology. American Anthropologist, 108(2),

370-375.

Weebmor, T. (2005). Teotihuacán, Mexico. Mediating

Monumentality: An Experiment. Recovered from

http://traumwerk.stanford.edu/teotihuacan

Witmore, C. (2004). Four archaeological engagements

with place mediating bodily experience through

peripatetic video. Visual anthropology review, 20(2),

57-72.

Witmore, C. (2006). Vision, Media, Noise and the

Percolation of Time Symmetrical Approaches to

the Mediation of the Material World. Journal of

material culture, 11(3), 267-292.

REVISTA CHAKIÑAN, 2017, Nº.3, DICIEMBRE, (20-40)

ISSN 2550-6722

Argent, G. (2013). Inked: Human-horse apprenticeship,

tattoos, and time in the Pazyryk world. Society &

animals, 21(2), 178-193.

Bergson, H. (1963). La evolución creadora. In H.

Bergson. Obras Escogidas. Madrid, España: Aguilar.

Castañeda, Q. & Matthews, C. (2008). Ethnographic

archaeologies: reflections on stakehold-ers and archaeolo-

gical practices. Walnut Creek, United Estates:

Unidos: Altamira.

Cochrane, A. & Russell, I. (eds.). (2013). Art and archaeo-

logy: collaborations, conversations, criticisms. New

York, United Estate: Springer.

Clifford, J. (1988). On ethnographic surrealism. In J.

Clifford (ed.). The predicament of cul-ture. Cambrid-

ge, United Estate: Harvard University Press.

Edgeworth, M. (2010). On the boundary: new perspecti-

ves from ethnography of archaeology. In D.

Garrow & T. Yarrow (eds.). Archaeology and Anthro-

pology. Oxford, England: Ox-ford Books.

Edgeworth, M. (2006). Ethnographies of archaeological

practice: cultural encounters, materi-al transformations.

Walnut Creek, United Estates: Altamira.

Edgeworth, M. (2003). Acts of discovery: An ethnography of

archaeological practice (Vol. 1131). Oxford, England:

British Archaeological Reports.

Fernández, V. (2006). Una Arqueología Crítica: ciencia,

ética y política en la construcción del Pasado. Madrid,

España: Crítica.

González-Ruibal, A. (2012). Hacia otra Arqueología:

diez propuestas. Complutum, 23(2), 103-116.

Hamilakis, Y. (2014). Archaeology and the senses: human

experience, memory, and affect. Cambridge, England:

Cambridge University Press.

Hamilakis, Y. & Ifantidis, F. (2016). Camera Kalaureia: An

Archaeological Photo-Ethnography. Oxford, England:

Archaeopress.

Hamilakis, Y. & Anagnostopoulos, A. (2009). What is

archaeological ethnography? Public ar-chaeology,

8(2-3), 65-87.

Hamilakis, Y., Anagnostopoulos, A., & Ifantidis, F.

(2009). Postcards from the edge of time: archaeolo-

gy, photography, archaeological ethnography (a

photo-essay). Public Archaeology, 8(2-3), 283-309.

Hamilakis, Y., Pluciennik, M., and Tarlow, S. (2001).

Academic performances, artistic presen-tations.

Assemblage, (6), 7-21.

Heider, K. (1988). The Rashômon effect: When ethno-

graphers disagree. American Anthropologist, 90(1),

73-81.

Ingold, T. (2001). Anthropological perspectives on

technology. In T. Ingold. Beyond art and technology:

the anthropology of skill. Albuquerque, México:

University of New México Press.

Ingold, T. (2008). When ANT meets SPIDER: Social

theory for arthropods. In C. Knappett & L.

Malafouris (eds.). Material Agency. Boston, United

Estate: Springer.

Ingold, T. (2013). Making Anthropology, archaeology, art

and architecture. London, England: Routledge.

Ingold, T. & Hallam, E. (2007). Creativity and Cultural

Improvisation. An Introduction. In E. Hallam & T.

Ingold (eds.). Creativity and Cultural Improvisa-

tion. Oxford, England: Berg.

Jay, M. (1993). Downcast eyes: The denigration of vision in

twentieth-century French thought. California, United

Estate: University of California Press.

Marmol, J. (2016). Proyecto Arqueológico Monte Miravete:

Foto-etnografía arqueológica #1. Un estudio visual y

sensorial del trabajo de campo de la campaña de

prospección arqueoló-gica de 2016 (Unpublished

book). Monte Miravete Project, Murcia, España.

Marmol, J. (2017). Dropping the trowel: three narratives

and one creative archaeology. AP Journa, (6),

75-116.

Moreno, W. (2013) Fotoetnografía educativa: una ruta

para comprender la cultura corporal escolarizada.

Revista Iberoamericana de educación, (62), 119-141.

Simonetti, C. (2013). En presencia de lo ausente.

Rastreando materiales en movimiento. Papeles de

Trabajo, 7(11), 40-61.

Simonetti, C. (2015). The stratification of time. Time &

Society, 24(2), 139-162.

Layton, R. (2003). Art and agency: a reassessment.

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 9(3),

447-464.

Shanks, M. (2004). Three rooms: Archaeology and

performance. Journal of Social Archaeolo-gy, 4(2),

147-180.

Shanks, M. (2012). The Archaeological Imagination.

Walnut Creek, United Estate: Left Coast Press.

Shanks, M. & Pearson, M. (2001). Theatre/archaeology:

Reflections on a hybrid genre. London, England:

Routledge.

Shanks, M. & Zvabo, C. (2013). Archaeology and photo-

graphy: A pragmatology. In A. Gon-zález-Ruibal

(ed.). Reclaiming Archaeology. Beyond the tropes of

Modernity (pp. 89-102). London, England: Routled-

ge.

Schneider, A. (2017). Alternative Art and Anthropology:

Global Encounters. London, England: Bloomsbury.

Renfrew, C. (2003). Figuring it out. Where do we come from?

What are we? Where are we going? London, England:

Thames & Hudson.

Ruiz, G. (2014). Fotografía y Arqueología: ventanas al

pasado con cristales traslúcidos. In E. Baquedano

(ed). Jose Latova. 40 años de Fotografía arqueológica

española. Madrid, España: Comunidad de Madrid.

Tilley, C., Hamilton, S. & Bender, B. (2000). Art and the

RePresentation of the Past. Journal of the Royal

Anthropological Institute, 6(1), 35-62.

Valdez-Tullet, J. & Chittock, H. (2016). Archaeology with

Art. Oxford, England: Archaeo-press.

Van Dyke, R. (2006). Seeing the past: Visual media in

Archaeology. American Anthropologist, 108(2),

370-375.

Weebmor, T. (2005). Teotihuacán, Mexico. Mediating

Monumentality: An Experiment. Recovered from

http://traumwerk.stanford.edu/teotihuacan

Witmore, C. (2004). Four archaeological engagements

with place mediating bodily experience through

peripatetic video. Visual anthropology review, 20(2),

57-72.

Witmore, C. (2006). Vision, Media, Noise and the

Percolation of Time Symmetrical Approaches to

the Mediation of the Material World. Journal of

material culture, 11(3), 267-292.