Seeing the Past: Visual Media in Archaeology

As digital media become increasingly affordable and accessible, visual representation in archaeology is expanding across several dimensions. In this essay, I examine some emerging forms of visual media in archaeology, including online documentaries, maps and photographs, hypermedia, experimental films, and peripatetic video. Visual media offer powerful opportunities for engagement with the public. In addition, archaeologists are finding new ways to use the visual in interpretation, analysis, and critique. Experimental visual works often are self-consciously reflexive, questioning and exposing the ways archaeological knowledge is constructed, represented, and disseminated.