"Ghost in the Machine" with Chester Liwosz, Mesa Talks, July 2022

Announcement: This talk is postponed due to inclement weather, and will be rescheduled for July 27th.
In partnership with Los Luceros State Historic Site, MPPP is pleased to return for another year of the Mesa Talks lecture series. This is a lecture series between Mesa Prieta Petroglyph Project and Los Luceros Historic Site focusing on all things history and archaeology in New Mexico and the Southwest! This will be hosted in person at Los Luceros as well as streamed virtually on Facebook and TH-cam. This year we will be simulcasting these lectures live from Los Luceros. Our June Mesa Talk will be "Ghost in the Machine: Cognitive Archaeology and Virtual Heritage Management" with Chester Liwosz.
Abstract: This talk is the topical and spiritual successor to the ongoing narrative I have built in my Mesa Talks over the past two years. Beginning with "Conserving Sonic Heritage," I introduced the subject of archaeoacoustics, and the social and political importance of preventing impacts to the qualitative "sound" of archaeological sites. Last year, I followed up with "Sensory Archaeology," in which I related the discipline's tense straddling of STEM and the Humanities as we reach for the proverbial holy grail of relating observations today to the subjective experiences of sound, color, and embodiment in the past. Building on these discussions, I now move the conversation forward into using virtual heritage management (virtual reality depictions of archaeological evidence and interpretations) as a tool for cognitive archaeology (the systematic study of past minds). This immersive, mind-expanding multimedia presentation explores both the interpretive and scientific potential of 21st Century media for archaeological practice and theory - in short, melding mind and machine.