“My work is like digging, it's archaeological research among the arid materials of our times.”

—  Michelangelo Antonioni

On Zabriskie Point (1970) in Esquire (August 1970)
Context: My work is like digging, it's archaeological research among the arid materials of our times. That's how I understand my first films, and that's what I'm still doing...

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "My work is like digging, it's archaeological research among the arid materials of our times." by Michelangelo Antonioni?
Michelangelo Antonioni photo
Michelangelo Antonioni39
Italian film director and screenwriter 1912–2007

Related quotes

“One of the few benefits of the fall of civilization as we know it,” he says, “is that there are private cellars with fine vintages everywhere one digs. It is not theft. It is archaeology.”

Dan Simmons book The Rise of Endymion

Source: The Rise of Endymion (1997), Chapter 33 (p. 674)

David Byrne photo

“Creative work is more accurately a machine that digs down and finds stuff, emotional stuff that will someday be raw material that can be used to produce more stuff, stuff like itself - clay to be available for future use.”

David Byrne (1952) Scottish alternative rock musician and promoter of world music

Source: Bicycle Diaries

Philip Morrison photo

“Archaeology of the future is what it should be called. Archaeology of the past is very interesting because it tells us what we once were. But archaeology of the future is the study of what we're going to become, what we have a chance to become…it's a missing element in our understanding of the universe which tells us what our future is like, and what our place in the universe is. If there's nobody else out there, that's also quite important to know.”

Philip Morrison (1915–2005) American astrophysicist

On SETI, Nothing is Too Wonderful to be True (1995)

“Since books are not their primary source materials, as they are for research in the humanities, most scientists prefer to spend their time on experiments and not on reading.”

Douglas John Foskett (1918–2004)

Source: Information service in libraries (1958), p. 9

Richard Miles (historian) photo

“But archaeology […] often acts as a parallel narrative to history: if you start digging with a textbook in your hand, you are soon going to get confused. You have to be comfortable with the idea that there are many different versions of history.”

Richard Miles (historian) (1969) British historian and archaeologist

My bright idea: Civilisation is still worth striving for

Lois McMaster Bujold photo

“Magical powers worked sometimes; material powers worked all the time.”

Lois McMaster Bujold book The Hallowed Hunt

Source: World of the Five Gods series, The Hallowed Hunt (2005), Chapter 12 (p. 218)

“Paleoseismology... is science by backhoe. Researchers dig deep, straight-walled ditches and search up and down for signs of shaking.”

Shawna Vogel science writer

Naked Earth: the New Geophysics (1995)

“No other conclusion of modern research testifies more clearly to mankind’s intimate connections with the universe at large and with the cosmic forces at work among the stars.”

Nigel Calder (1931–2014) British science writer

The Key to the Universe (1977)
Context: In a sense, human flesh is made of stardust.
Every atom in the human body, excluding only the primordial hydrogen atoms, was fashioned in stars that formed, grew old and exploded most violently before the Sun and the Earth came into being. The explosions scattered the heavy elements as a fine dust through space. By the time it made the Sun, the primordial gas of the Milky Way was sufficiently enriched with heavier elements for rocky planets like the Earth to form. And from the rocks atoms escaped for eventual incorporation in living things: carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulphur for all living tissue; calcium for bones and teeth; sodium and potassium for the workings of nerves and brains; the iron colouring blood red… and so on.
No other conclusion of modern research testifies more clearly to mankind’s intimate connections with the universe at large and with the cosmic forces at work among the stars.

Richard Long photo

“The source of my work is nature. I use it with respect and freedom. I use materials, ideas, movement and time to express a whole view of my art in the world.”

Richard Long (1945) artist

Richard Long (1982), cited in: Description of the exhibition Concentrations IX: Richard Long, March 31–July 8, 1984 at the Dallas Museum of Art http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth224905/m1/1/. <br class="br">1980s

Nikita Khrushchev photo

“Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will dig you in. We will bury you.”

Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971) First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Remark to western ambassadors during a diplomatic reception in Moscow (18 November 1956) as quoted in Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev: Statesman, 1953-1964, Penn State Press, 2007, (2007) by Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, p. 893

Related topics