Hamilakis, Y. 2015. An Athenian, nocturnal archaeology (a photo-poetic essay). Journal of...

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Journal of Contemporary Archaeology 2.1 (2015) 149–168ISSN (print) 2051-3429 (online) 2051-3437 DOI:10.1558/jca.v2i1.26634

149An Athenian Nocturnal Archaeology (a photo-poetic essay)

PHOTO ESSAY

An Athenian Nocturnal Archaeology (a photo-poetic essay)

n Yannis HamilakisUniversity of Southampton, [email protected]

How does one evoke and conjure up the contemporary moment of crisis in the urban landscape? Can the conventional tools and methodologies of archaeology and archaeo-logical ethnography be of any use in that endeavour? Where do these tools meet other expressive modalities such as poetry? What does it mean to “do” archaeology amidst the contemporary ruination? Is our impulse to record and to archive, the most appropri-ate reaction in these cases? The words and images that follow were generated in one such urban crisis-scape, Athens, between July 2014 and February 2015. With one exception, these are night photographs, taken by a mobile phone camera, and they are thus coloured by the distinctive artificial light of the city. It was the atmosphere that these depicted murals generated, together with the mysteries of the night itself, which inspired the words, written on the spot using the notepad of the same mobile phone, and reworked in the months that followed. The images are not meant to act as illustrations for the poems. Both components stand on their own, maintaining their autonomy. They are closely linked, however: not only do they share locality and time, but they also enact other, subtle and oblique connections, not all of them apparent to their author. The last image, which has accidentally captured the shadowy presence of the author-photographer, depicts a graffito which reads, “I have no future, and thus I face no barriers”.

I

By dayI caress ornithomorphic figurinesbodies of claystrange hybrid forms

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three-quarter animalone-quarter human.

By nightI photograph creatures with large beaks and colourful plumage pinned like butterflieson the walls of semi-ruined buildingscrafted by twenty-one-year-oldfine art studentswho are about to sign a dealwith a gallery in Miami.

By dayI sit in a dark roomnot far from the First Cemetery at the end of Rest Street(next to a plastic bagfull of dismembered limbs)and reflect on the operational sequence of fragmentation.On how creatures of clay were unmadestep by stepblow by blowtheir fragments scattered in far away placesnot to be seen again.

By nightI pass by figures brokenunmadedis-assembleddis-remembered.All that’s left for them to do,is to shuffle and reshuffletheir own fragmentsrecollect them with due care and attentionrearrange their order and stratigraphyand put them backneatlyin that stolen shopping trolley.

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II

In the early hours of Friday morningyoung menwearing sleepless eyes and exhausted faceswhite capsworn out blue jeansand, occasionally,pale brown robes,walk down Socrates Streetblue, plastic carrier bagssuspendedfrom chocolate brown hands.

Silent they pass buildingswrinkled neoclassical facadeschained metal gatesstencils announcing the revolutionand a faded portrait of Rosa Luxemburg.

Above them, watchfullygutted living roomssectioned fireplacesone limping white chairand seventeen layers of light blue paint—an inside-out domesticityripe for gentrification.

Further downand next to the “All made in China” signa carefully prepared, printed inscriptionoutside a shop that used to bein the typography business:“At this very moment, I am absent.In cases of urgency,please call 694678914”.How long does a moment last?The sign has been here for the past three and a half years.

The men turn into Sophocles Street—leaving other tragic poets behind—and descend into an anonymous basementa timetable printed on an A4 sheet

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and taped on its door:“Fajar 5:30; Asar 6:30; Maghrib 8:53”and other cryptic phrasesthat few natives could comprehend.

They emerge after an hour or so and make their way backavoidingat all costsEpicurus Street.No offence, but why should they let the Samianmock them againwith that sardonic grin on his face?

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III

Scrappies are the shamans of the transfiguration of matter.They are the alchemists of the eternal flowand kinesis of objects.They keep their cyclical movement alive.

Descending into the underworld is what they doas all shamans worth their salt.

Into this large rubbish bin, for example,on Alexander the Great Streetlate, this Sunday evening.

He had to explore it firstusing his dowser’s stickhis metallic hookable to receive the cosmic wavesof discarded matterof built-in obsolescenceof childhood over-indulgenceand out-of-date domestic bliss.

But soon enoughhe will have to jump inmake the journey once againpass through many layers:paperplasticmetalaluminumglassorganic matter;to revisit the temporal rhythms of the upper worldand its waste rituals.

Alas,he knows that the journey into the world of dead objects will not suffice. He already chose a few to resurrectwhich have boarded his trolley for the other journey to the scrapyard;prized among his collection,that whitepig-fatwater boiler—a 1978 model.

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But no, more is needed, his shamanistic mission is far from complete...

And suddenly, the moment he was waiting for:passed Thermopylai Street in the cornernext to the Egyptian cafe with nargileshis sacrificial victim lying on the pavementstuntbreathlessready.

He took his knife to itwith the holy panic and reverent urgencydeservedfor the purest of the sacrificial victims.The sharpness of his bladesliced throughits soft epidermisstill harbouringthe memoriesof countless nights andthe imprint of manywarm bodies.Still preserving the corporealcells of men and womenstill exhibitingthe greycloudy shadowsof passion spentmoisterotic hastesweatingfurtive embracingfluid momentary affection.

A good shaman is a master butcher first and foremost.He knows how to gut his victimhow to go for the entrailsusingthe least possible effortso that she can read the future in the signsof the internal organs.

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In this casethe omens are good:top quality springsmade of 2.34-mmcopper-coated wirefrom a largeking-size mattress:worth more than a day and a night’s work on their own.His job was done.

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Acknowledgements

Sria Chatterjee, Evangelia Ledaki, Eleni Papargyriou and Christina Vona read these poems at an early stage, and offered their thoughts and encouragement. Ana Pastor Pérez helped with the processing of the images, and Despina Catapoti, Rodney Harrison, and Fotis Ifantidis encouraged me to proceed with this publication. But it is the people of Athens, migrants and “natives”, and its street artists who are to be thanked, most of all.

Author biography

Yannis Hamilakis is Professor of Archaeology, School of Humanities, University of Southampton. Address for correspondence: Archaeology, School of Humanities, University of Southampton, South-ampton SO17 1BJ, UK. Email: [email protected]

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Hamilakis, Y. 2015. An Athenian, nocturnal archaeology (a photo-poetic essay). Journal of...

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