Filming Archaeology in Hellas: Technopolis City of Athens (and beyond)

Experience a different side of Athens: landscapes, cityscapes and soundscapes that explore the city’s industrial legacy at Technopolis City of Athens (and beyond).
A video-essay containing immersive documentaries that explore visual connections between industrial architecture, antiquity and traditions of film-making.
Accompanied with producer’s commentary and ‘making-of-video’ interviews with contributors.

Friends of British School at Athens video-webinar | Tuesday 3 December 2024 | produced and presented by Gordon Davies with project collaborators:
https://www.bsa.ac.uk/events/filming-...
Special thanks to Technopolis City of Athens.
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About this video:
Offered as a ‘sequel’ to BSA Friends’ webinar Historical & Contemporary Archaeology in Greece (Thomas Gallant, July 2022):    • Historical and Contemporary Archaeology in...  

Featuring:
European Route of Industrial Heritage site Technopolis City of Athens
https://erih.net
Kerameikos Metro Station
Marathon dam | reservoir | Bouyati water tunnel
Thorikos mines
https://www.thorikos.be/outreach
Neo Faliro steam-electric power station
https://www.currentathens.gr/spaces/s...
Eleusis shipyards
http://www.elefsis-shipyards.gr

Project context:
This research originated as a ‘twinning project’ between two industrial museums in the European Route of Industrial Heritage for presentation to an Association for Industrial Archaeology workshop (The Architecture of Industry, 2023) in co-operation with:
Technopolis City of Athens (Hellenic Ministry of Culture | Department of Modern Culture and Intangible Assets) for site access
Hellenic Vault of Industrial Digital Archives
Drone videography by Long Run Productions in co-operation with the Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority. Project facilitated by the British School at Athens.
Produced and edited by Gordon Davies
Additional research contributions by: Tulsi Parikh, Heather Grossman, Sebastian Marshall, Martin Winkler


Bibliography:
Jacob Bricca (2023) ‘How Documentaries Work’. Oxford Academic. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/978019755...


Maria Daniil and Maria Mavroidi (2023) 'Gasworks plants in Greece: From operation to reuse', https://www.ticcih.org/conference-on-...


Charles Dickens (1861) ‘The Genii of the Lamps’. https://www.djo.org.uk/indexes/articl... ​


Heather Grossman (2015) 'Photographing the Present, Constructed with the Past. Pascal Sébah's Photographic Mediation of Modernisation in Nineteenth-century Greece' in Camera Graeca: Photographs, Narratives, Materialities. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315570761​


Industrial Gas Museum (2015) ‘The Athens Gasworks. The history, the technology, the people, the museum’. Technopolis City of Athens. ISBN 978-960-87271-4-4​. https://www.gasmuseum.gr


Martin Nilsson (1940) Greek Folk Religion. New York: Cat. https://sacred-texts.com/cla/gpr/inde...


Dionysia-Georgia Perperidou and Eleftherios Poulis (2022) 'Blue-green infrastructure and urban renewal: the case of Illyssus and Eridanos rivers, Athens, Greece', https://www.researchgate.net/publicat...


Robert Louis Stevenson (1878) ‘A Plea for Gas Lamps’. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Virgin...


Russell Thomas (2020) ‘The Manufactured Gas Industry’. Historic England. https://historicengland.org.uk/resear...


Martin Winkler (2024) Classical Antiquity and the Cinematic Imagination.
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009396691


Filmography:
Chris Marker (1989) ‘The Owl’s Legacy’. https://theowlslegacy.vhx.tv
Public trailer:    • THE OWL'S LEGACY Trailer (dir. Chris Marker)  
EYDAP (2006) ‘Athens Water a History of Flow’
   • Athens Water a History of Flow  
Elinor Wight Gardner ‘Excavations in Greece, 1920s-1930s’. Royal Geographic Society, courtesy of British Film Institute National Archive: https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/w...
VRT (1966) ‘Delven naar het Verleden’ | ‘Delving into the Past’ . Thorikos Archaeological Project https://www.thorikos.be/outreach/#gal...

Visualography:
Archive photographs courtesy of:
Industrial Gas Museum, https://www.gasmuseum.gr
Nikos Markou, https://nikosmarkou.com/gasworks
Eleni Spathi, commissioned for this research: https://www.elenispathi.com/
Drone videography by Long Run Productions, directed by Leonidas Liambeys, drone operator: Stelios Apostolopoulos (Greek Society of Cinematographers), flown in compliance with Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority drone code.

Archives:
Vault of Industrial Digital Archives https://www.vidaarchives.gr
BSA Archive https://www.bsa.ac.uk/about-us/archive
DAI Athen https://www.dainst.org