What is a Spatial Palimpsest?
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Palimpsests traditionally refer to parchment, vellum, or papyrus that was reused by washing off or scraping away old texts to create a new writing space. For centuries they served archeologists and historians alike in the uncovering previous layers of history that have been otherwise obscured by layered and tangled surfaces of text. Initial texts and materials become often lost and partially destroyed by new authors adapting the material to incribe whatever it is they felt compelled to write. So, whether it was because of the lack of supplies or a desire to imbed new meaning into an
An X-ray image of the famous palimpsest, “The Archimedes Text”, reveals entangled layers of text and images that have accumulated over centuries.
existing surface, the writer becoms the active participant in the destruction of the original in order to create something new. What results, is a hetergenous mix of different layers that are so intertwined that is difficult to distinct what is old from the new.1 In a palimpsest, the material, whether it is papyrus or concrete, is subject to a temporal transformation along with the text inscribed into it. In archeology, scientific tools such as carbon-dating or radiographing can be used on materials of a palimpsest order to uncover which texts belong to the original and determine which layers do not. In his work, ‘Surface Research’, Henri Jakobs utilizes the processes of erasure and drawing as a design tool to build rich and layered textures of information.
1
“Palimpsest.” The Chicago School of Media Theory.