Tři etudy z archeologie moderní společnosti – group of authors (2023)

Philosopher, theorist of historical sciences, and dissident Zdeněk Vašíček (1933–2011) compared archaeological synthesis to an image: "While [historical] narrative is diachronic, always consisting of a sequence of events, the image corresponds to a situation, which is given by synchrony, i.e., the parallelism of objects, events, and their relationships (...). To be valid in our decision-making, it must meet certain basic requirements: it must be directed towards a specific goal, nothing essential must be omitted, nothing must be added, it must be clearly divided into individual objects, and these must relate to each other, even if only indirectly. Moreover, it must be organized in such a way that it can be 'read' in different orders. Thus, just like with a narrative, we create a kind of 'cautious generalizations'. Generalizations at a somewhat higher level than in the case of a narrative, because the image captures not only successive and causal relationships but also interchangeable, reversible, and neutral relationships." (Zdeněk Vašíček. Archeologie, historie, minulost. Prague 2006, p. 95) The artist and protagonist of the underground scene of the 70s and 80s, Bohumír Komínek (1944–1999), brilliantly captured the synchronic view of the complex (post)modern world in his painting Before the Image, where ancient and modern symbols intertwine with historical events,…